House of Myths
by Morglum da Granger
Summary: Something awakens in the wastelands, and it could very well mean the end of the budding colony. Rated T for the occasional curse/fights. Disclaimer: I don't own WALL-E or any of the canonical characters established previously. Criticism welcome.
1. Monsters

Chapter 1

"Monsters"

"Demolition in thirty seconds, clear the blast area! Clear the blast area," came the calm voice of one of the construction workers. Several robots zoomed overhead, carrying tool boxes and unused detonators. A tram went by, carrying the human part of the demolition team, as well as several of the heavier robots.

"Fifteen seconds!"

The demolition team began closing the blast shutters on the rather crude bunkers, old and modified cargo containers, covering ears or shutting down audio receptors. The tram continued past the bunkers, looking for shelter in the lee of a building.

"Five…four…three…two…one! Blast initiated," said the worker, and pressed the detonator button. Five seconds later, there was a string of precise explosions that blew the remains of the crumpled skyscraper into smaller bits of rubble. The building had collapsed somewhere in the region of three hundred years before the landing of the _Axiom_. In the process, it had blocked off a major thoroughfare and knocked several sections of the defunct power grid, but there were hopes that once the tower was removed, that maintenance teams could actually get to the grid and even repair it. There was much crossing of fingers, human and mechanical.

The blast was something of a success. The tower could now be effectively pulled apart and anything valuable reused. As soon as the dust cleared, the removal teams moved, the massive Wall-A units at the fore. There was one unexpected result.

One charge had caused a minor tremor to move along a small fault line, pushing a tremor thirty miles into the wasteland around the New Hope colony. This ended up hitting a small crack This eventually turned into a piece of concrete becoming loose, which then fell from the ceiling of a cavern. This then clanged against the head of a robot, the echoes filling the cave.. There was silence in the cavern for a while. Another piece of concrete fell, slightly larger than the first. It was caught in mid air.

The robot considered the piece of age worn concrete. It had been a long time since it had moved. All around it there were groans of metal limb unfolding, generators powering up, the click-clack of metal feet on concrete. Lights came on, and a holographic projector started, a flickering BNL logo hovering in mid air. The logo was then replaced by a spectrographical analysis of the tremor, and where it had come from. The robot noticed a red dot had begun to flash in the center of the abandoned city to the north. The hologram projector chittered something in a series of beeps and whistles.

The first robot turned its head, and said something in machine code. There was a murmur of replies in the same way. The hologram shut down, duty done The first robot began to move for the exit, feet clicking omn the ground

It passed through giant airlocks. It moved past sections of walls where an underground river, feet splashing through viscous polluted water. At another, it pulled itself through a hole in a roof collapse, crawling through pockets of rubble. At the very end it stopped and sat on its haunches, steel scraping the ground. It sat in silence for a second.

Then there was a hum, which permeated everything, shaking the entire room at a near microscopic level. A small port opened up on the robot's back with a scrape. From the roof, a long robotic arm mounted on a rail, extended down. It held a glowing red rod. It inserted the rod into the port. The port closed. The robot's eyes glowed red for a moment, then darkened to a purple. What had once been red and black painted steel, faded to a rust red, flecked with orange. The robot shuddered and moved forward as the final air lock opened. It walked into a rough hewn cave, moisture condensing on the walls

It disappeared into the darkness. The air lock closed quietly behind it.

* * *

The more Jan Brenner thought about it, the more she was sure wasn't crazy. She had seen something move through the garbage stacks around the demolition site. She flicked her flash light over a mound of old tires, which stayed comfortably still. A Steward bot, called Ed, was hovering beside her, and it was also becoming more cautious. There wasn't really any moon to see by, but it wasn't pitch dark at all. Several work lights were still up, a few robots doing site preps for secondary demolitions the next day.

She had at first supposed it was some other night watchmen moving along his or her route. But the lack of light had made her worry. Even the most advanced robots gave off some kind of light, even if only a bit from the eyes. But no one moved through New Hope at night without some form of light. And then as she caught the flicker of movement in the corner of her eye, she realized she was quite possibly being followed. She had put it at the back of her mind till she'd caught sight of a rounded head poking over the top of a pile of broken televisions.

She didn't really like guard duty. There was nothing to guard. No valuables to steal, no enemy to creep up on them and attack them in the night. It was just site security, make sure kids didn't wander into a demolition site in the dead of night and get caught in a blast the next day. Ed hovered quietely around a corner, warning lights on.

Kids. There were a few running around now, in their early teens at the oldest. There was a kind of melancholy about them. Ten years out of space and they were adapting to earth well. They were living in a messed up world, free of the _Axiom _and its constraints. Funny how the _Axiom _was the bad place, and this was the future. Some rubble slithered to the ground.

There was a horrible scream in the toneless voice of machine code. She could tell there was horror in that voice, even if it was only a rapid, climbing series of beeps. It echoed through the city, rebounding between the stacks of trash and building. She saw a group of robots heading her way from the demolition site. Jan realized where the cry had come from. Ed was still screaming, though weakly. She ran, slipped on a piece of trash, recovered, and came around the corner the steward had disappeared behind. She played her flashlight over the scene before here. A robot, easily ten feet tall, was cradling the steward one handed, the steward's bottom resting on the ground. A thick download cable had been forced into Ed's chest, which connected to the new robot's skull.

The robot that had captured Ed was an orangish color, not a single identification number or letter. Its legs looked like a pair of great mechanical scissors, though they were nearly two feet thick, and ended in thick pairs of hooks. Its arms almost mimicked those of a human, though they were much larger, ending in hands big enough to enfold the average human head. The fingers were small by comparison, stubby things, ending in a series of manipulators, each capped by a thick steel talon. The creature looked right at Jan when the light came across its face. The face was like that of some ancient knight's helmet, but with a pair of circular purple eyes set in a small face where the visor should have been.

It pulled the cable from the steward, setting it carefully on the ground. It moved over to Jan, eyes wide. It walked like a big predatory cat, knuckles used to help balance itself as it moved, shoulders moving up and down with each step. It paused right in front of Jan, and almost acted liked it was sniffing her. The head was right in her face, balanced on a disjointed neck. A small scanning field projected from one eye, and played across her body. It paused for a few moments, head tilting to one side. Jan closed her eyes, knowing it could snap her in half in a second. She heard a creak of steel. Then there was a crash. She opened her eyes.

Three stewards were blasting the thing with containment fields. They couldn't contain the whole thing, the size of the robot preventing them from fully stopping it. The thing actually roared in response, a deep throated roar of some primeval beast. The stewards pushed it back again. The robot reached out with a clawed hand, smashing one of the stewards from the air. The steward was reducedto a bunch of sparking pieces. The remaining stewards backed up slightly. That was all the robot needed.

It leapt through the air, right over Jan, crashing into the rubble ten feet behind her. It jumped again, and hit the side of a building. Impossibly, its claws dug into the concrete, and the robot began to run across the face of the building. It leapt again, crashing into a pile of wrecked cars. Within a second, it was moving again, a blur of motion in the night. Jan weakly touched the transmit button on the intercom she carried. The two stewards went after it

"_Axiom_, this is Jan… yo-u've got something coming your way."

* * *

"Repeat that, Jan. we lost you momentarily," said Captain McCrea. There was another hiss of static, and McCrea sighed. Communications in New hope fluctuated in quality from day to day. Every sandstorm blacked out the communicators for days, weeks at the weeks. Even on a good clear day, any intercom unit was likely to be unreachable from the _Axiom_, or at least so badly distorted that communication would be impractical. Another thing that needed to be fixed.

The list of problems was still growing, even after a decade. Housing was fine, but maintenance and new construction was taking more and more labor time. The robots had their own special set of needs, new parts, repairs, diagnostics, and recharge stations. Add in the crops having trouble growing from seven century old seeds and DNA samples, they were still relying on food from the _Axiom_ about fifty percent of the time. Maintenance of the ship itself, even after the closing of most nonessential areas, still took more people then he really wanted.

"Come in, Jan. Please repeat."

"Some-…-ming your way," came Jan's reply.

"Could you clarify, Jan?" McCrea asked. He wasn't sure, but Jan almost sounded like she was scared.

"It too-…-wo stewards. We need a -…–air team out here now," came back another hazy response.

McCrea straightened in his seat. He turned and spoke to the robot to his left, the TYP-R unit.

"Check for any missing or damaged stewards. Make sure it accounts for all those outside the ship as well."

The robot beeped twice, and typed a few buttons on the control panel in front. A holo-screen came up. The list showed dozens of designation numbers, each one a steward unit. Most were in shutdown for the night, a few more were either designated on patrol. There were a few anomalies. Two stewards had (PRST) registered as their current activity, meaning they were following something. Two more stewards were marked in red. One was marked (DMGD), the other marked (DOA). McCrea stifled a little gasp.

Since landing they had encountered nothing more dangerous then the average cockroach. There were accidents but deaths were low, and only a handful of robots had been lost. McCrea moved the destroyed robots into the "dead" column in his mind. Most robots had developed a personality of sorts. Ever since Wall-E had shown up ten years ago, it wasn't uncommon to see robots adapting their own little eccentricies, or even names. To lose two stewards in such a short time meant something was wrong.

"TYP-R, sound the alarm."

* * *

Most people were still active around night fall. There was still maintenance work to do inside, and the odd project which needed a moving team or a specialist. There were people who just met to talk and discuss the day, their families, or share stories. There were lights on in most windows, people just getting back from the demolition site or one of the other projects. Robots were also conversing amongst themselves, some with humans or in their own groups.

The apartment blocks were all clustered around the main causeway and tram routes. The main road left the city, and ended at the remains of a destroyed bridge. Near the very end of the bridge, a derelict truck sat, more of a tank than anything else. The rear ramp was open, light pouring out of the opening. Several robots were clustered in small groups around the exit. One was, as to be expected, Wall-E. Hovering next to him was Eve, both in discussion with the rather small Mo. They laughed at an old joke.

Wall-E's truck had become kind of the unofficial meeting place for the original rogue robots. They met every few weeks, just to talk, reminisce and laugh. They were a kind of celebrity to the group. Even as they went about their days, they were treated with a bit of deference, especially by the robots. Most robots stayed away from the truck, primarily just to give the group their privacy. But there we're a few who had joined over time, either just showing up or being invited. There were about thirty robots now, each one odd in their own way.

The discussion that night, as it did every few meetings, turned to the events that had brought the _Axiom_ to Earth, as well as stories of the first few days of just trying to survive. There was a ripple of machine code laughter as Burn-e described being trapped outside the _Axiom_ the day Wall-E showed up. Wall-e and Even laughed too, especially since the welder droid had been locked outside because of them.

Then the sandstorm sirens started to blow, harsh in the night air. The robots began to look around for the oncoming storm, all the while moving toward the shelter of the truck. Wall-E looked around quizzically, his own alarm silent. This caused a few moments of confusion, everyone looking at Wall-E, chattering distractedly, looking back towards the main residential blocks, where storm shutters were blocking out the lights. The intercom, a portable unit the size of a small piece of luggage, buzzed into life.

"This is Captain McCrea. All stewards and EVE probes report to the southern edge of the residential area, and be on the look out for…well anything out of the ordinary. Engage anything that attempts to pass you, if its not one of ours."

Eve readied her ion cannon, the barrel and targeter sliding seamlessly from her right arm. Wall-e sighed and held up his hand, spreading the shovel fingers out. Without a second thought, Eve slid her fingers between his. The other robots began to busily stare at the odds and ends that sat in nearly every shelf in Wall-E's truck. Then with a sigh, they both let go, and Eve flew into the air, heading toward the southern edge of the residential zone. Wall-E watched her go, watching till she was out of sight. As the other robots discussed what could be going on, Wall-E stared off into the night.

As Eve flew through the city streets, she saw dozens of stewards moving. Each one was lit up, lights flashing, taking up blocking positions every thirty feet, ten stewards standing three feet apart. The next line of stewards would pass through each established line, and then set up in the next open position. Every apartment building had an at least twenty stewards in positions in the lobby, or on the first floor. The sirens still screamed their warning, making every movement silent by comparison.

Eve was still new to the idea that there was a threat. Besides the sirens, it was actually a quiet night. There was chatter in the intercom, steward bots reporting in that they were in position, or giving a status report. There were the softer machine code reports of the other EVE probes, each one tracking for targets, each one finding nothing. McCrea was supervising from the _Axiom_, making sure everyone was in shelter or at the very least very close to some. He was also feeding status reports on the two pursuing stewards.

"STU-ARD 115, the runners heading your way. Make sure your ready. EVE probe 007, 008 and 010, I need your support behind them," the captain said, voice firm and in control. The steward and the three EVE probes beeped an affirmative.

For a few more minutes, there was nothing to be heard but the sirens and the late, dry night wind. Eve did another loop over her assigned position, seeing nothing but the occasional shutter open, allowing some frightened faces to look out. Eve waved at a few, people she recognized. They seemed to be calmed by her appearance, and the shutters closed quickly. Eve returned her eyes to the streets below. The stewards were waiting in their orderly lines.

Then there was a stream of targeting info, contact reports from a group of stewards. Over the intercom, there was the sound of charging containment fields, and the click clack of a readying ion cannon. McCrea spoke over the comm.

"Hold firm, it's almost here. Stead- _what the hell is that thing_?"

There was a crash, and the buzz of several containment fields being used at the same time. A chattering started almost immediately. A voice warbled something in machine code, before being cut off suddenly. An ion cannon fired, and there was a flash of blue light a few streets away. The chattering continued unfazed, followed by more sounds of crashing. There was another wave of alerts, and more warbles in machine code.

"Everyone respond. All defense units close in on the disturbance," said McCrea as another explosion went off, "move now, folks!"

Eve vectored her body over a building, as several scores of stewards powered through the street below. Another EVE probe flashed by her, ion cannon ready. She flew around a pile of collapsing garbage, shaken loose by the explosion. A tracer round flew through the air, ricocheting off a wall. Eve flew around the corner of the final building. The street below was in complete chaos

Dozens of stewards were pushing forward, containment fields firing. They were in a rough circle around the… Eve didn't know what it was. It was a blur of motion, one second a clawed hand striking out and breaking a steward in half, the next a multi-barreled machine cannon blasting several more robots apart from a gun mount on its back. The stewards had several limbs bound, but the thing moved nearly by sheer force of will, the whine of servos audible over the explosions. There was a roar, something that Eve couldn't associate with a robot. Eve saw one of her "sisters" make an attack run.

She couldn't place the probe, but it was a brave one. It was flying a few feet above the concrete, ion cannon aimed straight ahead. Eve caught an expression of fixed determination on the face screen. The probe fired an ion blast right into the flailing robot. There was an explosion of blue fire, hiding the rampaging robot for a blinding second. Then a clawed foot shot out and grabbed the probe by the head as it shot by, and smashed it into the ground. There was a second of resistance, and then Eve saw the face plate crack, and finally shatter as the foot pressed down. With a speed that should have been beyond its size, the robot flung the dead probe into a group of stewards, knocking them over.

Eve was moving before it made sense. She was vectoring right at the robot, ion cannon momentarily forgotten. She slammed into the robot like a missile, just as its foot began to touch the ground. The robot tumbled to the ground, limbs flailing. Eve pressed the ion cannon against the steel carapace of the robot and fired. The ion blast blasted ash in her face, and the other robot was knocked back a meter. Eve fired again. The robot was sent rolling across the ground, armor plates red hot. Another shot blew one of the arms at the elbow, causing hydraulic fluid to splash out as the hydraulic system exploded. Eve fired one more time at full power, the shot catching the robot square in the chest. It was thrown against a building with a crash, cracks spreading out across the concrete from the impact point.

The barrel of the ion cannon was white hot. Eve slowly folded the gun back into her arm. She whimpered slightly, the heat nearly unbearable. The arm was barely moving, circuits fried because of the heat, and she sagged in the air slightly, energy drained. She slowly turned away from the robot, floating slowly away. Another probe, one that called itself Ariel, landed beside here, offering an arm. Eve took it, sagging even more. Ariel boosted her anti grav unit more, taking the weight.

There was a click, a buzz, and then Even felt herself fall. She looked down. The lower quarter of her body was missing, a straight line carved from side to side. Everything slowed down as her power core desperately tried to save what little energy remained. She fell to the ground. Ariel's arm was still clutching to her, Ariel screaming a wordless cry of pain, a neat round hole cut through one of the arm connectors, the connector unit simply annihilated. Eve turned her head slightly. The robot was still crumpled against the wall, but it had raised its remaining arm and head, servo motors straining. A small laser had folded out of the back of the hand, still buzzing slightly, a laser beam burning through the air . At least two dozen stewards were closing in on all sides, containment fields forcing the robot to the ground. Then it all went dark for Eve.


	2. A Life in Silence

Chapter 2

"A Life in Silence"

Captain McCrea hated the repair wards. He'd seen his fair share of people hurt, screaming as the medi-bots patched them up. He'd been to a fair few funerals, cried over quite a few bodies. It was a fact of life, and he'd taken his fair share of injuries, felt his share of pain. He understood that, he understood the human response to pain. But the silence always got to him.

The robots didn't grieve like humans. There wasn't any outpouring of sobs. He didn't understand machine code, but it was usually completely private. When a robot was badly damaged to actively speak, some just put data cords in each others heads, communicating into each others heads, sitting or floating next to one another for hours on end. Others whispered in machine code, keeping quiet. The repair bots moved among the repair tables and holding areas with complete silence, moving robots and or doing momentary repairs to keep a patient stable. One repair arm was reattaching an anti grav motor to a steward who'd taken a round that gutted its-McCrea corrected himself- his lower body. The steward would be back in service in a few days. McCrea stepped aside as a MV-R passed him, carrying a pair of completely destroyed stewards, two piles of nearly unidentifiable wreckage. They were being taken to the "morgue". McCrea had never really bothered to check what they actually did there.

The robots had an odd way of looking at death. The bodies weren't buried, and there weren't any funerals. But the bodies were never stripped of working parts. They were simply sealed in containers and put on cold storage. The way TYP-R had explained it to McCrea, it was a kind of bad luck to use the parts of the dead, unless it was an emergency, and even then most robots had refused parts of the dead, often shutting themselves down till new parts could be manufactured.

Most of the patients in the repair ward were stewards, damaged by the fight with the rogue. A few more were there to assist in any way they could, as well as a few cleaners led by Mo, and the occasional human mechanic. Mo himself was cleaning off the shattered shell of a steward, the little robot making several passes over a blast mark. Next to the little robot, the steward's innards were open, a repair arm re-soldering several wires. The steward burbled occasionally in machine code, like it was in a fever dream. McCrea moved past the robot with a sigh.

He walked slowly towards the intensive repair ward. He paused before the open portal door for a second, took off his captain's hat, and stepped through. The room beyond was cold, but there was more haste to what was being done. More mobile repair units, spindly eight armed robots attached to boxy bodies filled with spare parts and moving on little wheels, were clustered around a dozen patients. Nearly one side of the room was devoted to repairing the more hideously damaged stewards, some that barely resembled anything beyond burned out chasses, yet still functioned.

What McCrea was more worried about was a frantic knot of repair units, clustered around a knee high table. There was the whine of laser saw, and the sound of steel being carved apart. He quietly walked over, staying far enough out of the way as to not impede the repairs. There was a pop, and a repair droid, who McCrea recognized as the lead repair bot, pulled by him, holding a burned out ion cannon, which it then began to take apart, pulling out several destroyed circuits. The robot suddenly looked up at the captain. It spoke.

"Captain, what do you need?" said the repair bot, the voice sounding slightly frustrated and not a little angry.

"Just came to check in on the repairs. How is she?"

"The EVE probe? She will make it, though we have to do more repairs than we expected."

"That's very good, but actually I wasn't asking about Ariel."

The repair bot looked up at the captain.

"You mean 001, sir?"

"Yes, is sh-," began McCrea, but the repair bot cut him off.

"Follow me, sir."

The droid then turned its head slightly, and beeped out an order in machine code. Another repair unit moved off a stabilized steward to start stripping down the ion cannon. The senior repair bot began to move without another word, not stopping for the captain to catch up. McCrea hurried after him.

* * *

The senior led him down to the robot morgue.

"She's not de-," McCrea began, but the robot hushed him quickly.

"I didn't say that. Now be quiet."

McCrea might not have taken that a few years ago, but he did as the senior said. The morgue was dead silent and cold. The captain was glad his jacket now finally fit him comfortably. He would have shivering otherwise. The robots wheels cracked ice as they passed between the rows of broken robots. Several repair arms were carefully interring the remains of ruined stewards. McCrea glimpsed groups of robots slowly moving among the containers, clustered around cargo crates.

The senior lead the captain to a door that was in the very back of the room, where the robot then inserted a data key that was attached to one of its arms into a slot. There was a whirr and click. The door opened silently. The senior entered and beckoned for the captain to follow. The room beyond was odd.

It was almost a complete sphere, except the floor which flattened out the bottom. There was an odd blue light that suffused everything, and the walls didn't seem wholly there. In a circle around the perimeter of the room, were several glass tanks, each one layed out lengthways in a support, though most seemed to be shut down. Each one appeared to be filled with an opaque liquid, shining blue in the light. The senior pointed at one.

Wall-E was staring at one of the tanks. He didn't move to acknowledge the captain or the senior. He didn't make a sound, his hands hanging rather limply by robotic standards at his side. The little robot just sat and stared at one of the tanks. The liquid in the tank seemed to be spinning and moving like it was part of the sea. And then with an odd movement, the liquid became completely transparent. Eve was floating in the middle of the tank.

She appeared to be awake, but she stared fixedly at the roof, eyes wide in shock. The lower quarter of her body was missing, but there seemed to an odd lattice of metal begging to cover the damaged area, other burn marks and fracture mark half covered by swathes of grey…scabs that was the word that came to McCrea's mind. Wall-E reached out and touched the tank. The liquid slowly turned opaque again, and Eve disappeared behind the liquid. The senior grabbed McCrea's arm and urged him toward the exit. They left the room as quietely as they could. The senior closed the door as they left.

McCrea turned to the robot.

"What was that?"

The senior was silent for a moment. Then it spoke almost hesitantly.

"The damage Eve suffered was rather… unique. That blast cut through most of her anti grav unit and central power lines. We couldn't do repairs without simply tearing her apart and rebuilding her from spares," said the senior, as he began to lead the captain out of the morgue.

"So we left with our best, last hope: nano bot reconstruction. With a few simple commands, time and enough materials they can create a working system in any robot. Of course the issue is that it might take days or weeks before the damaged systems are repaired, and the final repairs can begin."

McCrea was silent for a moment. He then spoke.

"There's an unspoken if, isn't there?"

The senior nodded.

"The nanos are smart, but they can only do so much. It's fifty that it'll work, and if it fails, she'll have to be shut down."

The captain fell silent. They left the morgue, the doors sliding closed behind them.

The senior spoke again

"I also assume you came for an update on the other…patient?"

"Yes, but I wanted to see our own people first."

* * *

Wall-E stared at the tank. His hands still rested on the glass, his eyes still searching the nano bots for a glance of Eve. He shuddered every few minutes, little mechanical sobs escaping from his voice box. He didn't like this room, but he couldn't, no, wouldn't leave the room unless he desperately needed to. It was something of his duty, and more parts directive.

Wall-E couldn't remember the trip to the _Axiom, _just a few disjointed images of the way to the ship. He remembered dodging between groups of stewards and MV-Rs as they moved toward the ship. He saw himself pushing past repair bots, and his rush into the morgue, following the first thing that resembled Eve. He heard himself scream almost in equal parts rage and fear when he saw an EVE probe with its head crushed. He remembered being pulled off his feet as a repair arm restrained him.

It had taken him nearly half an hour before he was near calm enough for the repair senior to explain to him that Eve was still alive. He'd been led quickly to the nano repair room. He'd seen the repair arms lowering the shut down Eve into the tank. He eventually calmed, but his mind still played back every memory of Eve, happy and sad. A shudder went through his body as he remembered there flight outside the _Axiom_.

Revenge is not something that robots are familiar with. It's something that's almost irrevocably human. Robots could feel anger and love, but hate? That was something that Wall- had no words to express. He slammed a fist against the deck.

There was very little in the cargo bay. There was a stack of old battered cargo containers, two hundred pound crates used to hold excess supplies of all types. An old cargo lifter was deactivated in the corner. In the very center of the room, the robot was deactivated, an electric boot attached to its head, as it lay on its side. The legs had been bound under multiple force fields, like it had been hogtied. The remaining arm was removed, placed on a tarp alongside the shoulder cannon and lasers. A repair bot was carefully sealing the hydraulics that had been shattered in the fight. Another was using a laser saw to cut down the ragged tears in the armor plating.

"What is it?" asked McCrea. Even on its side, the robot dwarfed him. A cleaning bot was steadily cleaning up a pool of hydraulic fluid that had gathered on the ground.

"There's nothing like it in the_ Axiom's_ files I have access to. It's like it doesn't exist," said the senior repair bot, humming distractedly, "and the only unit with access to the highest level files is the Autopilot."

"Get him down here then," McCrea replied. The senior nodded, well more really bobbed its head slightly, and called across the intercom for Auto.

There was a slight pause as they waited for a reply from Auto. Then there was a crackle as the autopilot called back.

"Yes captain?" the toneless voice said over the intercom.

"Auto, we've got an unidentified robot down here."

The autopilot was silent for a moment.

"Coming, captain."

A few moments later, a small drone flitted into the room. It was about the size of a large cabbage, and was spherical in shape. It was a simple holo drone, almost a flying projector. Since Auto couldn't leave the bridge, and the GOPH-4 unit had never been rebuilt, it was a simple way of allowing him some freedom. The drone hovered over to McCrea. A small portion of the sphere opened up like camera shutter, revealing a small red eye.

"Identify sample," said the drone. McCrea gestured towards the robot on the ground behind him. The drone hovered over, and a scanning field was projected from its eye.

It took a full five minutes for the drone to complete several passes over the robot. When it was finished, it merely closed the eye shutter, and hovered in mid air.

"What is it, Auto?" asked McCrea. The drone was still silent. Auto answered over the intercom.

"Classified unit, under Section Three BNL Secrecy Order, page three hundred, article fifty, section 10."

"Auto, we've had a discussion about secrets. Ten years ago, I believe. And I honestly don't care about some order from men long dead."

The autopilot was silent for a moment.

" Classi-"

"It attacked the colony, Auto."

This led to a longer pause. McCrea knew he was playing with Auto's feelings a little too much. Some days it was almost too easy to forget that Auto did care for humanity, even if it was in his odd, perfectionist way. He did try to help to help the colony where he could, even if most people in the colony still hated him.

"Processing request for unit declassification", Auto said hesitantly.

There was a chatter of machine code from within the drone. The holo-projector reopened on the front of the sphere. A scaled down image of the robot appeared, running in place was projected on the ground, projected with a red light.

"Guardian Observer Battle Line Intelligence - Night Class."

McCrea was silent for a moment, thinking the name over in his head.

"GOBLY-N?"

"Yes, captain."

" I didn't think BNL programmed robots to actually kill people."  
"It is not able to actually harm a human being. It fits more in a policing role."

"Like a STUAR-D?"

"On a much larger scale and a good deal more effective."

"How effective?"

"Pre-evacuation tests suggest 90% of field tests were successful."

"Any other pieces of pertinent data?"

The hologram of the GOBLY-N froze. The image was then zoomed in on a small hatch that was set right between the shoulders.

"The primary mission core is located here," Auto said.

"And if we remove it?"

"The GOBLY-N will reset to stand down mode. Once that occurs, it will go to secondary personality drives, and be essentially harmless."

McCrea paused for a moment. Two thoughts warred in his head. One was of all the robots it had destroyed, for Eve in the nano tank, for that look of terrible sadness that seemed to coat Wall-E. But there was also the thought: everyone deserves a chance. Auto was back, and to an extant forgiven, though never fully so. Maybe the GOBLY-N deserved that same chance.

McCrea sighed.

"Could we remove the primary core easily?" McCrea asked as he studied the robot before him. Auto replied after a moment, the sound of holo projector ticking over the only sound.

"Yes, though there are some safety protocols that may need to be overcome."

McCrea clapped his hands together.

"Okay people, let's get to work."


	3. Of Firewalls and Other Awakenings

Chapter 3

"Of Firewalls and Other Awakenings"

The first step was the most dangerous. This did not sit well with TYP-R or Auto. Someone had to shut off the GOBLY-N's auto defenses from the inside. Otherwise, even attempting to open the core cover would fry anyone who even touched it the wrong way. Add in that the primary core could just reboot the robot on its last orders, and the risk was somewhat higher than anticipated. Extra stewards and security personnel had been brought in from the perimeter and repair jobs. A particularly large group clustered around two low tables. Both had a transfer unit laying on top, each the size of a suitcase. Cords ran from dozens of plugs into multifarious sockets and plugs into each unit, buzzing with power and information. Two thick cords plugged into external data ports on the GOBLY-N's back, ready and waiting for the transfer.

Auto was watching all this from the bridge. In truth he feared the upcoming transfer. The Axiom files had been rather… blank on the system override codes for the robot. It was truly unknown territory. The captain was banking on the fact that Auto and TYP-R both had high security clearance ratings, and that they should be able to beat their way past any security programs within. Auto spun himself in idle frustration.

He just had to hope the transfer into the robot's mindscape would work. It was his duty to see it through.

A message came from TYP-R.

"Ready?" it read simply

Auto simply hit the transfer

* * *

There is very little like a mind transfer. To a robot, it is rush of lights and sounds, impossible images, a blend of data recorded and programming in process. Abstract subjects become clear, while logic is lost in seas of molten binary. Half spun memories float by, bearing the soul (Auto balked at that word) of the transferee to any who can watch. Auto watched as a blurry video floated past, of TYP-R's hands cutting holes in the ground for the fist planting season. The memory was oddly tinted with a warm pink color. Auto was aware of a shade of a shadow that looked like the typing robot watching Auto shock Wall-E continuously. A bow seemed to flash and spin across the sky, hidden by a spray of sparkling stars. Auto was swept up in a waves of zeros and ones.

The greatest danger was the loss of control. Too long in the euphoric state, and thee was a chance that the transferees could blend into one mind. Auto knew of an Autopilot who had fused itself into the engine systems of its starliner. The explosion had blown the entire craft into a hail of micro particles, closing off an entire star system. Auto had made that sobering report to Captain Reardon. Auto came back to a kind of reality on that fought. TYP-R was also returning, hanging onto his memory of Wall-E rescuing the Axiom from Auto.

Another aspect of the transfer was the personification of form. Auto knew of this odd effect, searching his data for the information. The programming of the robot, as well as the "personality" shaped what form the robot's mind would take in the transfer targets system. Some just took their own form, a few others mythical beasts, others sylphs of light. Auto looked down at his claws. Except, he was shocked to find, they were hands. He tapped his right on his left. It echoed hollowly. They were made of white plastic, but he could move the fingers easily enough, micro servos buzzing. He studied himself. He wore a white captain's uniform, so similar to the one McCrea wore, except this one had an almost grander sensibility to it. A row of medals, made from flickering streams of binary, dotted his chest. Gold braid hung from the shoulders. He touched his face. It was made of the same hard plastic, but he could feel features, nose, mouth, ears, eyes. He tapped one, feeling is flat service.

TYP-R was just as incredulous. He was cast in the form of an ancient scribe of Earth, wearing a long toga. A long sash of purple looped under his left arm. He was almost perfectly human, his features fleshy yet wrinkled. His head was dominated by a balding crown of white hair and a beard that spoke of years of venerable learning. The only features that even indicated his real body were the streams of code that burned underneath his skin, and the fact that his eyes were both bright red and pupil less.

"Where are we?" TYP-R whispered. For the first time, Auto became aware of his surroundings, forgetting his new body.

They had materialized in a field, the tips of grass reaching up to their waists. A breeze blew steadily, making the grass sway from side to side. A tree stood to their left, leaves dark green against a near perfectly blue sky. Clouds moved slowly from horizon to horizon, light yet almost threatening. Auto could see a building in the far distance. He was dumbfounded.

"I don't know… this is nothing like the files," Auto said after a few moments, "but I think we should go towards that building." TYP-R nodded his agreement, and they began to move across the field. They left a trail behind them, pushing aside the dense grasses with ease.

After what seemed like an interminable amount of time, the land around them began to twist strangely. The grass thinned every few meters. There were rumbles of thunder, and a flash of lightning on the horizon. A smell of brimstone filled the air, wafting on the harsher wind. Dust spiraled around them, enclosing them like a second layer of skin. The building seemed to grow larger with every step, growing more imposing and statelier with each glance. Massive Corinthian columns helped up the roof, which in turn were decorated with bas reliefs, the images of which were unclear. An eternal flame of blue fire burned on top of a massive plinth, smoke wafting into the sky.

Auto felt the temperature rise as they entered the temple perimeter. The flame grew brighter, casting harsh shadows. The columns seemed to darken, and the statues seemed to follow their every movement with unblinking stairs.

And there were many statues. Some had been ruined, limbs or heads missing. Some still stood, but they were stained by age and dust. They all faced away from the temple, like they were guarding it. They found the GOBLY-N crumpled at the base of one.

The statue itself was of a young woman wearing the clothes of an ancient hunter. A bow was clasped in her hands, arrow knocked. Her face was cast in a an expression of weariness and patience. A hunting dog was frozen in mid trot, marble eyes staring into the middle distance. The GOBLY-N was slumped at the base of the statue, head resting on the dog's side.

It was simply a smaller representation of itself. It was only about three feet tall, and two feet wide at the shoulders. It still looked like it was a predatory animal at rest, but somehow it had been softened. The claws had been smoothed down to thin fingers, each one a delicate manipulator. The rough orange camouflage was a rather smoother coat of black paint, details and symbols marked out in red. It seemed more a domesticated monster, made safe by generations of life in a world that demanded nothing of it. But Auto was sure it could snap back to that predatory nature of years past. He carefully sidestepped the robot.

"Why is it asleep?" TYP-R asked, clenching and unclenching his hand nervously.

"The primary mission core must put the central personality into stasis. "

"And what's that statue got to do with it?"

"Maybe it's the goblin's primary programming, or just some fixation," Auto said with a shrug, "Best leave it, and move on."

They continued on into the temple. TYP-R took one last look at the statue.

* * *

The doors to the temple were wide open, letting the light of the flame spill in. The light seemed to cut the darkness, cutting a line of light across the room. The shadows made it impossible to see the far walls, but Auto was aware of the presence of massive space around him and TYP-R. They walked down the corridor of light to the one other light in the room, glowing a sickly red. Auto and TYP-R both moved closer to one another as they walked. The darkness seemed to coil and move on its own.

The first trap came from the left. It was a column of marble, hanging from steel cables, swinging out of the darkness like a meteor. Auto held out his hand, which in turn glowed a bright green. There was a flash of white light, blinding both Auto and TYP-R. For a few moments they fumbled around till there vision returned. They found themselves staring at an odd scene. The entire room had been lit by glowing blue torches recessed into the walls. There were several dozen more of the column traps, each one fresh released. Arrows had been stopped mid flight, turning slowly. Falling stones were mere meters from their heads. TYP-R spoke first.

"We just got very lucky, didn't we, Auto?"

The autopilot nodded after a moment.

"The system was not directly linked to the Axiom command system, but I assumed that it would recognize a high enough BNL security rating."

They continued walking through the chamber, sliding around falling beams, skirting pit traps, and stepping over buzzing saw blades. The stone tiles were carved with curved lines, which stretched off in an unintelligible pattern. Occasionally, a line of code would flash through the air, leaving behind a blue afterimage.

The light at the end of the chamber seemed to grow brighter still. Auto soldiered on, TYP-R muttering under his breath. The more he thought about, the more TYP-R was sure the room was wrong. The tiles seemed to shift under his feet, the ceiling seemed to stretch into infinity, and the walls always seemed to be closing in on him. He wanted to be out of their as quickly as possible. He looked over his shoulder as he hurried up.

He walked straight into Auto's back.

"What i-"

The ground in front of them exploded in a wall of flame, TYP-R throwing his arms up in surprise and fear. Auto merely stared straight ahead.

"Level Alpha firewall. Interesting."

"I thought you said we were clear of the defenses," TYP-R said to Auto as he watched the flames dance. They reached into the infinite heights of the ceiling.

"We we're, but we need to override this level together."

They held out their hands, and the same green light again appeared there was no flash. The flames parted slightly, opening a small path through. The two passed quickly through, and the fire closed behind them. Before them the light source was sitting on a small jade altar. It was a tiny cheery, red flame. Without speaking, the two robots placed their hands near the fire. For the final time, the green light appeared. The flame brightened for a moment, then darkened, and finally went out. The firewall went out behind them. Auto spoke.

"Mission acom-"

* * *

The screaming lasted for twenty minutes and twenty five seconds. At any other time, it might have been hilarious. The toneless voices of Auto and TYP-R echoed through the Axiom, sounding like nothing more than a parody of terror. But the sound was relentless, and the voices sang a kind terrified duet, creating this wall of sound. At one point it was so loud that it cracked several panes of glass on the observation deck. Nearly every robot and human fled the ship as the screams rippled out of every speaker and from holo screen. Outside the Axiom was no escape either. Every intercom channel was taken up by the wall of noise.

Senior and his repair team had frantically raced around the GOBLY-N and after several minutes of arguing in machine code, pulled the plug on the machine transfer. The two robots kept screaming even after they had been pulled out of the transfer. Repair teams were launched from the repair wards, hurrying to each.

TYP-R was found flailing wildly, detached from his holder unit, flinging himself wildly against the walls, cracking his case. His red eye was spinning wildly, rolling like it was trying to escapes it sockets. It took a steward to finally restrain him and a boot was fitted quickly. Auto was a different matter.

The autopilot was spinning wildly, racing along the track that circled the bridge. It was smashing wildly into the consoles, several of the claws on his wheel broken off after several impacts. The consoles sparked wildly. It took a mild stun charge to slow him long enough for another repair bot to stick a boot to his eye. He was quickly detached from the bridge. Only after both robots were booted did the screaming stop.

In the middle of all this, the senior and several repair bots successfully removed the primary mission core from the GOBLY-N.

A signal was carried on the transmission of screams. It reached a receiver dish deep in the wastelands. The signal was then transmitted deep underground, where a computer then logged it.

+++GOBLY-N 001 Compromised+++

+++Primary Mission Core Missing+++

+++Unit Compromised+++

+++Hunter Unit Released+++

And another sleeper awoke. There was a click of claws running on concrete. But there was nothing to see as the airlock doors opened.


	4. Hunter

Chapter 4

"Hunter"

The GOBLY-N just sat and stared at the force field. It didn't move, didn't ask question in machine code. After its arm had been reattached, and the force field bonds removed, it had taken to sitting silently in the center of the cargo bay. Occasionally it would fiddle with the steel cap that had been fitted over its destroyed arm, or move the supply crates around, just toying with them. Once it jumped up and tried to see in a vent, crashing back to the ground with a crash.

Jan hadn't looked up from the card game in the last three hours. She'd lost a good deal on the game. Several piles of dust-stained BNL dollars were scattered among the players, the dealer, a repair bot named Tesk, currently in possession of the largest stack. Two stewards and another guard, Jakes, were all rather ahead of her in the game. Tesk shuffled the cards again. The old poker cards flipped between his manipulators, while a second set of hands dealt out cards, which slid across the table easily. Jan picked up her hand, and tried not to grimace. Nothing useful at all, just a useless hand of random numbers.

Jan cast a glance at the GOBLY-N. The orange camouflage had disappeared along with the primary mission core. It was almost hard to compare the docile robot with the monster that had ripped through several dozen stewards. The robot turned its head to watch her. She quickly turned back to the game, where Jakes had just made a raise.

* * *

There was a click of metal on metal on the ramps leading into the Axiom. The wind blew, hot and dry, scattering dust and trash. For a moment, a piece of paper halted in mid air as if it had come up against a wall, and then fell slowly to the ground.

* * *

For the second time in two days, McCrea was in the repair wards. He hadn't slept for the past day, since getting the Axiom's system under control without a skilled operator was a struggle. The command deck was now filled with people who were learning the job on the…well, job. He was frankly amazed the Axiom hadn't just shut down, or something hadn't malfunctioned. He knew that at least a dozen techs and repair bots were still trying to fix half the bridge displays.

TYP-R and Auto twitched on the repair table. Auto would spin slightly from side to side, while TYP-R's hands would spasm from time to time, clicking the stressed joint. Both were hooked up to back up batteries, and diagnostics had shown that all systems were in the green for both. But neither seemed inclined to speak. Their optics were shut down, and no one in the repair ward had any luck getting them to activate. At McCrea's side, Senior did a passable impression of a sigh.

"I've tried everything. Manual reboots, full diagnostics, replaced everything that was even close to needing to be replaced has been pulled out and a fresh part put in."

"Do robots ever twitch like that?" McCrea asked, as TYP-R flexed his hand.

"If there's something wrong with the circuit, that's possible. But we've done everything to fix that problem. It's simply coming down their impulse link and there's nothing we can do about that,"

"Could they be dreaming?"

Senior looked at McCrea.

"You know, dreaming. When you sle-"

"Captain, I'm aware of what dreams are, but I do not as such, dream."

"Well, sometimes when people are really deeply asleep, they'll twitch like Auto and TYP-R are doing. I don't pretend to understand it, but I guess you could say the brain is still sending messages to the limbs, trying to get them to act."

Senior turned this over in its head for a moment.

"Entirely possible, but I'd have to check with my colleagues in the medical suite to get a clear idea."

McCrea nodded.

"How are the rest of the robots down here?"

"Recovering, Captain. A good deal will be up and running by tomorrow."

"And Eve?"

"Prospects are looking good. We might be able to move her from the nano tank in the next few hours. We could even have her fully repaired by week's end."

"That's a breath of fresh air, Senior. You wouldn't believe the worry we've been getting from people about her."

"I couldn't imagine, sir. But if I my advise you, you need to rest."

McCrea yawned at the thought of sleep.

"Probably should, but I've got a few more things to check in on before I turn in again. Call me if anything comes up."

"I will, sir."

* * *

Mo was cleaning the halls of the Axiom. It was part nostalgia, part boredom. He couldn't bring himself to try cleaning the residential and administrative building of the colony, since any work on the exterior was usually erased by a new layer of dust from the next sand storm. Mo noted he tended to drag more dust into the Axiom when he went in, but it was all about the look of the thing. Some appearances should be somewhat maintained, even as fewer people had less business with the Axiom. The corridors of the sub decks where the menial robots used to work were always particularly empty, since most robots did their work outside the Axiom.

Another reason was Wall-E. The rogue robots had taken it upon themselves to have someone waiting nearby by for him, just in case he was needed. Eve being damaged had hit the group hard, and Wall-E was nearly inconsolable. Mo knew he needed space, but a friend close by was always a good thing. That the thing that had harmed Eve was only a few hundred feet from the repair wards made the little cleaning unit angry. Mo started to scrub a wall, scratching a bad scuff from years past.

There was a click of metal behind him. Mo was halfway through turning around to see what it was before he was grabbed by the head in a pincer like grip and lifted into the air. His movement ball buzzed as he panicked and tried to flee. He saw nothing in front of him except an incredibly complex set of transparent blemishes on the air, making everything beyond it fuzzy and distorted. He was aware he was being watched by something. The blemishes moved and something was pressed very close to his face.

There was a chirrup of machine code, quiet and urgent. Mo shuddered slightly.

"No," Mo answered back.

The demand came again.

"No," Mo said again.

The blemishes moved again. There was a little crackle.

Another longer burst of machine code, followed by the same demand.

"N-," Mo began, and then the world was filled with blinding pain. His entire body shuddered, as he felt like he was being crushed. He felt one of his arm actuators short out; saw a small spray of sparks fly through the air. The pain stopped as suddenly as it had started, and was followed by silence.

The demand again.

Mo was silent for a moment. There was a click. Mo suddenly spoke.

"Y-y-yes"

He was placed very gently on the ground. There was another beep of machine code, and something pushed mow slightly. Mo shuddered and began to move down the hallway, something following closely behind him.

* * *

Tesk had won. Again. Jakes folded as the repair bot laid down his hand, and Jan laughed. There wasn't a way to bluff a bot, especially the really advanced ones. Tesk was analyzing every twitch, every hidden grimace; every word was played against an audio file. The repair bot could even tell when the stewards lied, and it could play their bluffs just as well. If Jan was honest with herself, it was a little creepy, but she honestly didn't mind, and nothing was lost except a little pride.

"Another game?" asked Tesk, already reshuffling the deck. He was partially hidden behind his stacks of winnings.

"We're broke; unless you want to split the pot up again," Jakes aid back, leaning back in his chair slightly," I mean we need something too."

"Sure, sure," the repair bot said with a dismissive gesture. He began to divide up the stacks of cash in front of him.

"This is a real easy job. Just watch a giant robot huddle in a corner, and play cards," Jakes said as Tesk slid him a wad of cash.

"You weren't there, Jakes. That thing is a killing machine, no insult intended," Jan replied back. She shuddered involuntarily." It took out a lot of stewards."

'I know, I know. But it looks harmless now. Aren't you stubby?"

The GOBLY-N looked up momentarily from the stub of its arm, but made no effort to respond.

The personnel entrance opened, and Mo rolled in. Jakes spoke first.

"Hey, no unauthorized visitors, little buddy."

The little robot ignored him, quietely rolling towards the group. The card players got up. Jakes started to walk towards the little cleaning droid.

"What's this guy's name?'

"Mo, I think, you know, one of the rogues," Tesk said.

"Listen, Mo, you can't just come in here. This area is restricted," Jakes said, standing in front of Mo. The robot was like a toy before him.

"Now, just turn yourself around and-"

Mo fell over on his side with a thud.

"What the hell?"

There was a beep. The force field went down. The GOBLY-N stood. Jakes was reaching for his stunner. Jan called into her inter-comm.

"Axiom command, we have a breach in security. The force field is down," she said as she also reached for her stunner. Jakes was approaching the control panel, keeping one eye on the GOBLY-N which seemed to be watching a point of the air with an intent air; it seemed to brace itself for something. It seemed ready to sprint.

The all was chaos. The air in front of the control panel was suddenly filled with a robot. It looked like the GOBLY-N, only slightly smaller, smoother and covered in a coat of blue paint that seemed to reflect dazzling sprays of light. Cold green eyes regarded the members of the security detail. Then it shot Jakes.

A silver blur shot out of an arm mounted launcher. It hit Jakes in the leg, right in the thigh, knocking him to the ground, where he slid five feet across the deck. He started screaming, blood pumping from the wound. The robot took a step forwards. Jan took a step back, goggle eyed.

The GOBLY-N tackled the hunter from the side, throwing it up against the wall, and slamming a fist into its face. The newcomer growled something in machine code, and delivered a flurry of blows into the GOBLY-N's chest, forcing it back. The GOBLY-N lashed out with a kick at the other robot's chest. The hunter caught it, and swung him against the wall like a sledgehammer, leaving a dent. As the GOBLY-N fell to the ground, the hunter launched itself into the air, coming down feet first like a diving hawk. The GOBLY-N rolled out of the way, desperately regaining its feet.

Jan was dragging Jakes away from the frantic fate, a blur of clashing steel and mechanical roars Jakes was till screaming, part shock from the wound, partly because of the fight. The two stewards were trying to block the humans off from the combatants, while Tesk had flipped the card table for some cover. Jan pulled Jakes behind it.

"Axiom control, we need help now! We've got a man down, and another one of those things just let the GOBLY-N loose," she said desperately into her intercom.

"Crisis teams on their way, just stay calm," said one of the Axiom radio operators, voice strained by the static of the intercom. Jan looked over the table

The GOBLY-N was losing. The hunter delivered another kick to its chest, followed by a punch to the head, causing the GOBLY-N to stumble slightly. The hunter lunged again, smashing one of the repair plates on the robot's side, causing it to groan. The GOBLY-N jumped aside another series of blows, and then spun around, running for the exit. The hunter followed, launcher spitting grey blurs, one striking the GOBLY-N to moan again, but it kept running. It smashed through the personnel door in a shower of glass and plastic, fleeing down the corridor. The hunter followed close behind

* * *

The alarms were sounding. Red lights flickered and suffused the air with a hell like atmosphere. Every holo screen had shut down, every door locked down. Senior was nervous. No one had mentioned why there was a lockdown, but he what it was. The GOBLY-N was loose on the sub decks. There was a crash somewhere beyond the entrance to the repair ward. A few remaining stewards had risen from their repair tables, and were positioned around the entranceway. Repair bots were clustered around a few others, pretending nothing was wrong.

There was a shout of anger, causing the robots in the room to jump slightly. A repair bot was forcing the EVE probe, Ariel to stay n its repair table. The probe still was missing its ion canon, which was only half repaired. The probe tried to rise again as Senior rolled over.

"You need to calm down," he said as the probe tried to push the other repair bot away. The probe spoke.

"I'm… fine," the probe said haltingly.

"I'm sure you think you are, but the professional in me says you should really stay in the table."

"But-"

'I'll take no buts, miss. Just stay calm everything will be fine.'

And to prove him horribly wrong, the GOBLY-N cashed through the repair ward door. Glass flew across the room, scattering everywhere. It ran past the stunned stewards and repair bots without a second glance. A grey bolt flew over its shoulder, embedding itself in the wall. The hunter came through the shattered door seconds later. It made a lunge at the GOBLY-N, missing by mere feet. It slammed into a repair table, sending the table flying into the wall. It got up within a second, roaring.

The GOBLY-N ran blindly, dodging and weaving down the corridor that led to the morgue. He ran to the very center of the room, and turned quickly, bracing himself. The hunter charged through the door, the launcher spitting death

A line of bolts was stitched down one side of its chest, eliciting a scream of machine code. The hunter received a vicious uppercut for its trouble, cracking one of its optic units. The GOBLY-N made a grab for the hunter's head, but his hand was knocked away quickly, and knocked back by a kick to the chest. It fell onto a cargo crate, cracking it open. A wrecked MV-R spilled out onto the icy floor. The hunter kicked the GOBLY-N again, denting the robot's chassis.

The GOBLY-N slashed at the hunter with its clawed hand, cutting into the shoulder armor, ripping off one of the shoulder bolt launchers. The hunter grabbed the GOBLY-N around the chest, picking it up. The GOBLY-N punched the hunter in the back, but its struggling didn't matter. It was lifted into the air, and then thrown like a child's toy against the rear wall.

It went through the nano repair room door, taking part of the wall with it. It smashed to the ground, rolling. It began to crawl to its feet, but the hunter slammed into it, causing it to hit a nano tank. The glass cylinder cracked, the nano bots spilling out over the GOBLY-N and the floor. The hunter stalked over, bolt launcher aimed squarely at the downed robot.

A blade folded out of its arm. It was long and straight, a punching blade made for a special kind of execution. A power field glowed faintly on its edge, crackling with energy. It aimed the blade right over the GOBLY-N's power core. It tensed, and began the downward stroke. There was a yell, just a string of unintelligible sounds. A red light flickered.

The hunter stumbled, its left leg missing a foot. It turned, raising its blade. It saw Wall- laser active, burning into its leg. Molten steel ran like blood to the floor, hissing as it cooled. The hunter stabbed down at the robot, but the little droid had moved out of the way. The hunter aimed another blow.

The GOBLY-N kicked it with both feet in the face. The hunter was thrown into the air, landing with a crash against a console, crushing it. The GOBLY-N hobbled over as the hunter slowly got up. It brought down a fist into the hunter's face, completely smashing the cracked optic unit. The hunter yelled something in machine code. The GOBLY-N punched it again, knocking the hunter's head back.

With that blow, the hunter finally shut down. Its remaining eye flickered off and its limbs went slack. Its reserve power lights flickered on, emitting a low orange light. The GOBLY-N sighed, shoulder seems to sag. It sat down very slowly next to the hunter. It pulled a cable from an interface in its head, the same one that had allowed it to access the mind of the steward. It very solemnly inserted the interface cable into a slot on the hunter's back. There was a click and a whir, and very slowly, the GOBLY-N collapsed.


	5. Flowers

Chapter 5

"Flowers"

The courtyard was oddly beautiful. The artificial pond was covered with algae; large goggle-eyed fish occasionally breaking the surface to stare at him. The garden was overgrown, yet not completely unordered, plants cultivated and marked. Ancient murals depicting hunts of imaginary beasts were half buried in mud. A statue stood at the head of the pond, form lost under a cloak of vines and creepers. A hawk circled overheard under the cloudy sky.

A horn sounded in the distance. He cocked his head to the side. He listened for the horn again. Another note rang through the courtyard. He began to run, heading for the depths of the forest. With a swish of the closing foliage, the courtyard was empty again.

The forest was quiet. Nothing seemed to move, or even breathe. Even the trees seemed to be stiff and unmoving. There were no bird calls, no falling branches, not even a shadow moving across the light. He studied the clearing that lay so invitingly before him. It was empty. The grass was short, and a trail had been trampled across it, muddy foot prints still visible. A small puddle of water had collected under an overhanging pine, murky with dirt. He took a step forward.

A crow burst from a tree, letting loose a cry. It had launched itself from the pine tree, hurriedly flying across the clearing. It called out again, the silence thoroughly shattered. There was a creak.

The arrow came from an unexpected direction. It seemed to be loosed from the ground itself, straight and true. It impaled the crow right through the chest, which emitted a final, startled squawk. Its wings closed, and it fell like a stone. It never reached the ground, but instead landed in an outstretched hand.

He considered the figure before him. A few words that he might have used were god-like, perhaps Olympian in the most literal sense. It wore a simple set of huntsman's clothes, simple yet tough and sturdy. The figure made them all the sharper just by wearing them. The bow the figure held was an ornate longbow, studded with glowing diamonds, which flashed in the sun. The figure smiled, square, white teeth gleaming. He very carefully took a step back.

His foot cracked a twig which had not been there before. He had made the simple mistake of forgetting whose realm this was. He turned and ran, crashing through the undergrowth. There was another creak. He threw himself to the ground.

The tree in front of him exploded in a flurry of splinters. He felt one cut him across the face, and dozens more left cuts all across his body. But there was no time to pause, even as the rest of the tree fell to the ground, he was up and running again. An arrow had already quivering in the ground where he had landed moments ago. Another arrow flashed over his shoulder, destroying another tree.

Somewhere behind him, a pack of dogs began to snarl.

He dodged between trees, crawling under snarls of brambles, across slow streams and through empty clearings. The dogs seemed to fade away, and he felt a faint surge of hope. He entered into another clearing, slowing slightly. His front foot entered open air. He jumped back, falling to the ground in a shaking heap.

The clearing was neatly cut in half, falling away into a sheer cliff face. He could see a great rushing river, rapids of raging white water stretching through mazes of rocks and fallen trees. It was least a quarter mile down. He got to his feet, shaking with fear.

A dog began to growl behind him. It was joined by another and more besides till there was a rumble. He slowly turned around, seeing at least a dozen hunting dogs prowling up to him. They were uniformly big, slavering brutes, frothing at the mouth. Each wore a collar, studded with silver spikes.

The figure stood behind them. He was struck by its beauty. It smiled again and looked squarely at him. Her eyes were completely blank, just empty voids tinted with green light. He couldn't look away.

She raised her bow. The arrow head glinted in the sun as it was knocked. He tried to move, but he was firmly rooted to the spot. The figure pulled back on the bowstring and aimed the bow. The dogs had grown silent, knowing what came next. One even wagged its tail. The bowstring was released.

The arrow struck him in the chest, just like the crow. He staggered backwards, and then fell. He saw the sky above him, the cloudy blue marred by fluffs of white clouds. He heard an exasperated sigh and a call to the dogs. He felt the blood pump from the wound, the heat spilling out. He felt the wind all around him.

He thought only of the smile. That beautiful, angelic smile crossing her face as she looked at him. He could remember every detail.

He hit the rapids and disappeared.

He woke very slowly. He tried to move one of his arms, reaching out to a long branch that lay next to him. The pain caused him to wince and drop his arm. He very carefully took stock of himself. Every part of his body ached; bones fractured just enough to cause waves of pain to move across his body. The pieces of the arrow that had extended beyond his chest had snapped off, lost in the current of the river. He very carefully rolled onto his back, stifling a cry of pain as he felt a rib rub against his skin.

The river bank he had washed up on was devoid of life like the rest of the forest, just a stretch of mud and sand. The river continued by at a lazy pace around a bend, disappearing behind a wedge of boulders and towering pine trees. There was a sound of a waterfall, almost a roar, somewhere behind him. He rolled back onto his side. He reached for the branch again.

The next few minutes of trying to stand were the most difficult time of his life. The world faded to black and then to white with each exertion, pain framing his body with each movement. It hurt to simply be alive, or at least close to it. He heard a voice scream, and hew as well aware, in a detached sense, that it was his own, that the blood dropping from his mouth was his own. When he was finally standing, leaning against that branch, he knew if he fell, if he even stumbled, he would be dead. He carefully took a step forward and winced. He very slowly began to move along the bank, prodding the ground before him.

It was after a few moments of this slow travel that he noticed the first hints of the dirge. It was nearly indecipherable above the sounds of the waterfall, but he knew what it was. He smiled; his blood-stained and cracked teeth revealed in a pain fuelled grin. He began to hobble faster, taking a little less care with each step.

The bank turned into a feeder stream, with a waterfall falling from a cliff. Water misted the air around him, billowing out like smoke. The bank turned from mud to stones, and then he was up to knees in the stream. Fish moved in the shallows around him, scooping up the blood that dripped off his back into the water. He didn't notice didn't care, fixed on the sight before him.

Twelve figures in white monk's robes stood in a circle around a single red candle, their heads bowed. They sang a slow chant, their voices deep and the sounds caressing his ears. Each carried a long quarterstaff, held in front of them in front of their bodies. Each was standing on a rock, easily balanced even as the water rushed around them.

He hobbled his way between two of the figures, holding his breath. Neither moved, or stopped singing their dirge. The water had stopped moving here, even though water clearly flowed in and out, forming a perfectly still pool that not even his entrance disturbed. The candle brightened slightly as he pulled himself slowly onto the rock. The dirge got more urgent, the voices echoing in his ears. He sat very carefully down on the rock, spreading his legs before him, getting comfortable.

They couldn't stop him, not in a physical sense. But they knew what he was doing. He knew that the change of the dirge was calling the hunter here. They were going to stall him as long as possible, their voices already entering his head, scratching at his mind like tree limbs on a window. They made every movement difficult, like he was fighting against a gale.

_Monster_

He slowly reached for-

_A fool's errand_

-the candle, his hand closing-

_Mind Eater_

over the flame, his-

_Despoiler_

-flesh burning as he forced his hand closed.

_Creature of the Night_

The flame beat at his hand, fighting to-

_Reaper_

escape like a snake, flaring brightly-

_Never forget, never forgive_

as he squeezed harder. The heat

_Will they dream, the dead?_

began to subside. He closed

_Death Incarnate_

his eyes as the flame finally-

_Murderer_

-guttered out. The dirge had stopped, and the voices were screaming. He knew what was forming around him. He heard the tearing of cloth, of muscles falling from inner forms, spikes and tentacles rising from eyes and necks and mouths. He heard the water begin to boil, splashes as things jumped into the water. Something touched one of his feet, slowly coiling around his ankle. There was a creak.

One by one, the voices stopped screaming. After a few more seconds, it was silent again. There was a near silent swish of water, and something stepped onto the central rock. Hands very gently uncoiled the tentacle around his ankle. A hand was placed on his forehead, warm and smooth. Now that he thought about it, he could smell lilacs, though where those came from, or what they were was far beyond him. He smiled, eyes still closed.

The owner of the hand spoke. Every word sounded like some angelic choir in one voice, haunting, almost like that of a siren of legend. It made the sonorous voices of the monks seem mere children singing a playground rhyme. It was a simple message.

"Thank you," said the voice.

He opened his eyes.

"Back up! He's getting up! Get out of there!" a voice was yelling. His eyes flickered on, and he felt something fall off his external plating. As he stood, he disconnected the transfer cable, hand shaking. There were dozens of holes in his armor, shattered systems sparking, and shorted circuits firing pain impulses across his body. He felt bolts jammed into his back and legs, making it hard to stand. Coolant dripped from his chest, splattering the floor. He regarded the room around him.

At least a dozen humans and twice that many robots were crowded around the edge of the nano room. Some took a few steps back as he stood, fear and determination warring on their faces or eye screens. The repair bots that were near him seemed ready to run away or try and help him. The only robot that seemed unfazed by him was the small square bot on treads, goggle eyes staring at a nano tank, in a stance with a mix of determination, anxiety and a kind of sadness he was not used to.

"Is he on our side?" a voice whispered in the background, voice caught on his audio capture system. He turned his head slowly, the joints creaking, as he regarded the speaker. By his guess he was towards middle age, the very first edge of gray coming to his hair. He seemed to be speaking to a repair bot, which in turn whispered back.

"I'll just have to see," the repair bot said, and it trundled forward, wheels licking as it crossed the room. The crowd moved silently apart, getting out of the bot's way without complaint. It came to a stop short of him. It spoke in machine code

"Directive?"

He turned his head on its side. The word sank through his mind with glacial slowness.

"Directive?" it asked again, this time more urgently than before. The word began to touch something, the very essence of an idea. A memory fired, touching off process deep in his cortex.

He very slowly raised his shaking arm, the fact that that should not be happening coming to his frazzled mind. He pointed with one trembling claw, his legs sagging like he was a child in the throes of a fever, at the hunter, who seemed like all the world like she was asleep, dreaming the dreams of the deepest sleep. The repair bot moved next to him to get a better look. It sat for a moment, then stared up at him.

"Directive?" it said, this time the answer already forming in head.

He nodded at the repair bot. It seemed like the right thing to do.

Then for the second time in less than two hours, GOBLY-N collapsed with a clang.


	6. Home Is Where You Hang Your Hat

Chapter 6

"A New Day"

The repair ward had become something of a curiosity over the last three days. People kept trying to see what was going on inside.

Senior was elbow deep in GOBLY-N's guts with all eight of his arms. He carefully resealed a hydraulic cable, used a laser saw to remove damaged interior plating, while two more hands were carefully reconnecting an auxiliary cable, all the while focusing on removing a bolt that had shorn through the back armor plating. Other repair bots were sealing gaps, hammering out dents, stripping and replacing circuits, and running diagnostics on the relatively few undamaged systems. A holo screen stood nearby, showing several cutaways of the robot's interior. The repairs were nearly finished.

The repair ward was finally quiet again, the security team ushered out, and the doors blocked by a few stewards. Silence had taken over, as each repair bot did their duty without speaking, or acknowledging the others. It was how they worked best, undisturbed and in a communal isolation. There was one disturbance however. Senior felt something tug on his lower torso, pulling him back slightly. He deactivated the laser saw and finished reattaching another power coupling. The unseen hand tugged again, somewhat more urgently.

Senior turned at the waist, and bent down slightly. Wall-e stared up at him, eyes like those of a rather sad puppy. The trash compactor spoke.

"Eva," it said simply. Senior checked his internal clock. A little counter had been slowly been ticking away, counting off hours. Wall-e had beaten the alarm by ten seconds.

"It is that time, isn't it," Senior said. He called another repair bot over to take his place. He placed the laser saw carefully on the table and turned away from GOBLY-N. Wall-e had already begun to head back to the nano room. Senior moved to follow, but a voice in machine code. Senior turned his head slightly, and then altered course.

It was Mo, who had just been placed into recovery. There were still areas of melted plastic on his outer casing from the electrical shocks from the hunter. It taken a few days of repair work, but he up and moving again, and in the end, that was all that mattered. The repair droid was inside of a repair cage, rolling up against the force fields. Senior deactivated the force fields, and the little droid rolled out. They both went into the robot morgue, and through the shattered door of the nano room. Wall-E was already by Eve's nano tank, rubbing his hands together. Mo rolled over to him.

Senior moved over to the central console which had remained remarkably undisturbed during the fight. One of his arms folded out and he began to type the access codes. After a few moments, the nano tank started to hiss like a tea kettle. The nano bots were being siphoned from the tank, entering into secondary containment tanks. Eve very slowly began to be revealed as the tank emptied. She seemed fine, the repairs finished. Wall-e placed his hand on the tank, humming a song that Senior had a vague memory of hearing once. Mo started to hum along too.

Senior activated the second phase of the procedure as the final few nano bots disappeared. The top of the tank then folded open, and a robotic arm descended from the ceiling. It reached through the opening and gently clasped the probe in its grip. The arm pulled Eve out of the tank like an egg from a basket.

The arm then moved along a track and deposited Eve onto a recovery table. An anti grav field activated, letting the probe float a few inches above the table. Senior set the arm away, and it folded up. Wall-e and Mo were already waiting by the table.

Senior wheeled himself over the table. He picked one of his smaller manipulators and positioned it over Eve's command section. He typed in the restart command, and backed away.

There was whir and a click, and then a low hum. Eve opened her eyes and floated into an upright position.

"Ev-a!" Wall-E yelled happily, almost pulling himself onto the table in a burst of motion. Eve spun around and reached down and pulled him up. They clasped hands, and they touched faces, goggle eyes to face screen. A spark kiss passed between them Wall-e sighed, and the two robots embraced for a few moments. Eve whispered something to Wall-E, who then laughed. Senior imitated a cough.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but we just need to run a diagnostic to make sure everything is okay."

The two robots broke their embrace. Eve lowered Wall-e to the ground and then she also hovered down to the ground. They followed Senior through the shattered doors of the nano room. Eve gave a questioning look to Wall-e. Mo started to explain in machine code what he had heard, but this was competing with Wall-e's shouted explanation and wide hand gestures. This did not get through very well, but Eve got a confused explanation about a fight. She sighed as they entered the main repair ward.

This was, in the truest sense, the worst possible time. The repair bots had just reactivated GOBLY-N. The robot was slowly powering up, servos shuddering. It unfolded its legs and stepped off the large repair table it had been set on.

What happened next was one of those things no one ever clearly remembers seeing. They remember a flash of blue anti grav light, a white blur, and a click of steel tapping on glass. Eve had her ion cannon pressed very firmly against the faceplate of GOBLY-N. If there had been human's in the room, they probably would have forgotten to breathe for a few moments. Instead, every single robot was frozen, very carefully craning their heads around to se what had just happened.

Senior moved first. He began to move his way between the stunned repair bots. Within a few moments, he was near the pair, GOBLY-N completely rigid, Eve slowly trying to press the other robot's head up. He very carefully tried to push the probe away, but it was trying to push a wall over. The probe was rooted to the spot in the air.

"Eva?" Wall-e asked, confused and not a little bit worried. He was ignored by Eve, whose face plate showed nothing but a pair of narrowed blue eyes. She pressed harder with the ion cannon.

'Listen, Eve, we all know what he did, but the situation has changed," Senior said carefully in machine code. The probe nearly spat its response.

"It's a murderer, a monster, and yet you're fixing it? What's wrong with you?"

"It's hard to explain, but it's on our side now."

Eve threw an angry glance at Senior.

"Our side? After all those robots it has killed, do you think it cares?" she said almost yelling at Senior and the rest of the room. She turned away for a fraction of a second too long. There was a click.

GOBLY-N had raised his arm and was very slowly pushing Eve's arm up with a pair of claws. After a few moments the gun was aimed more or less at the ceiling. Eve was trying to push back, but al that did was scratch her arm slightly.

"Get him out of here now," Senior desperately whispered to a pair of nearby repair bots. They moved to either side of GOBLY-N. One tapped the hulking robot on the leg. The robot turned slightly and peered down at the repair bot, which seemed like a small child by comparison.

"Time to go," the repair bot said, ushering GOBLY-N to follow him. The robot very carefully let go of Eve's arm and turned around towards the exit of the repair ward. Its feet clanked on the floor as it passed between the shattered doors after the repair bots. The security bots parted to let it through. Eve still tracked his every move till he disappeared down another corridor. Everyone I the repair ward unfroze as Eve folded her arm back into place. Senior sighed.

"Let's get that diagnostic done."

The day was slightly cloudy, brown clouds obscuring the sun. There was a chance of rain in the next few days, but of course with Auto down no one was getting quite as accurate reports from the weather monitoring systems. McCrea had found the small conference room a comfortable place out of the way. No one needed to know about this meeting outside of a few. STU-ARD's 60 and 23 were quietely reviewing several data files, talking quietely in machine code. A medical bot, an almost exact copy of Senior, except its hands had been replaced by arrays of scalpels and other surgical tools. It was standing quietely by the conference table with nothing to say. A few humans were sitting around the conference table, each the head of a department of the reconstruction, looking uncomfortable to be back on the Axiom.

60 flashed one of his lights quickly. That was the signal to start the briefing McCrea straightened himself in his seat. The lights dimmed and the room was quiet.

"I'm sure you're all very aware that we've had some visitors to the colony recently," McCrea began, "and you're also aware that one of them destroyed several stewards along with an EVE probe. I'm also going to confirm the rumor that another one snuck onto the Axiom and attempted to neutralize the first robot."

It would have been easier if they had gasped, maybe panicked or gotten angry. But they just stared at the captain. It wasn't out of shock or fear, but rather just acceptance. Life had been hard the last decade, and they'd worked through some of the toughest conditions and doing the hardest tasks possible. This was just another challenge.

John, an old friend of McCrea's, raised his hand and asked a question.

"So what happened to them?"

"One is currently deactivated and under heavy guard, the other…" McCrea gathered his thoughts for a moment. He had to sell this right.

"… The other is on our side now. We're hoping to ease him into colony life, and make a productive member of society out of him."

He got a look from everyone that essentially said: "Not in my department."

"I know this will take a while to get us-"

"We heard what happened to Jakes," John said quietly.

"Well that was our infiltrator."

"Yeah, fine, but what's the chance it won't just go crazy and kill someone? What if a kid said something that just sets of some personality engram? And the infiltrator wasn't even trying, and it got past everybody into the Axiom. It hurt Jakes, and we're not even sure it was trying."

The medical robot whirred back to life, its knowledge needed.

"Patient Jakes Varnan received an injury from an unidentified unit, which used a magnetic accelerator bolt launcher. The bolt hit him in the thigh in an area regarded as non life threatening, with no damage recorded on any major vein or artery. The femur was missed by a margin of two centimeters. Wound placement and damage: Non life threatening. Minor nerve system damage possible," it aid n a matter of fact tone, voice buzzing slightly.

"Okay, so it wasn't trying to kill him. That's still hardly a recommendation," John said, thumping his hand on the table for emphasis. The other people nodded.

"Trust me I know that, but the other one seems friendly for now. I say we give him a chance. We gave Auto a chance."

"I'll admit that was fair, but there's a massive difference between a robot with a taser and a robot that can cut people to shreds."

"Could we just give him a chance? One week, and if stays friendly, maybe then we can consider what we should do with it."

The department heads looked at one another, and quietely whispered amongst themselves for a few minutes. John spoke first.

"That sounds fair but if it goes psycho or betrays us, you'll have t deal with it yourself."

"Agreed."

'Just one question. What are we going to do with the other one?"


	7. Whistle While You Work

Chapter 7

"Whistle While You Work"

The wasteland was dotted with spots of green, stands of small water hoarding shrubs and weeds. Nothing much to look at, but a sign that earth was making a come back none the less. There were even the forerunners of trees visible among the expanses of trees, stunted, twisted things no more than a few feet tall, covered in bark more gnarled than an alligators hide. GOBLY-N ignored this as followed the tram, kicking up a dust cloud after him. He was no more than five meters behind the tram car, even though the anti grav unit let slide liker water over most rough terrain.

They'd had to take the long route around the city, avoiding pretty much everyone, since GOBLY-N was still a relative secret, little more than a rumor, but the appearance of an unexplained giant robot might have led to more than little screaming and general running around then was liked. The supervisor crew didn't like the extended run, worrying about battery life and dozens of other disasters that could befall them out here. But Captain McCrea had asked them to "show" the newest member of the colony to his workplace. The unspoken order was to make sure GOBLY-N didn't disappear in the wastelands, since it was slightly easier to track someone in the city with e Axiom' limited scan range.

After passing a mound of used tires, they finally reentered the city, sky scrapers spreading shadows across the little convoy in the early morning sun. They passed blocks piled with trash that reached the tenth floor of most buildings. Sector 18-A1 had gotten a bad name over the past decade. Direct communication with the Axiom was hard, and there weren't many people working out that way. If you got trapped by a garbage slide or injured, it could be a while before help arrived, even if they knew you were in trouble. A tram car half buried in rubble stood as mute testament to the dangers.

The tram car finally stopped at a relatively clear intersection, and the human supervisor and two stewards piled out. GOBLY-N was already waiting, sitting like a big dog a few meters from the tram, staring at the human supervisor, who spoke quickly, desperately wanting to leave the robot to its business.

"Listen, you know your job, but to reiterate, clean Junction C23 to C25 so that they can be used. Dump site is in Wasteland Sector A1. Understand?"

GOBLY-N stared at him, impassive.

"Do you understand me, big guy?"

The robot nodded once.

"Good. When you're done follow the route we used to get back to the Axiom," and with that the supervisor team got back in the tram, and set off. They disappeared rather quickly around a building, the sound of the anti grav motor fading away echoing away to nothing amid the buildings. GOBLY-N had already turned away, starting to make his first few dents in the massive piles of garbage and debris.

The morning slowly passed on into the afternoon, the sun rising to its zenith, cutting away the shadows of the sky scrapers. GOBLY-N was dragging his two hundredth and thirty fifth load of garbage to the dump site, dragging the dumpster he'd been using to carry garbage behind him, one handed. The missing arm was slowing him down, forcing him to proceed at a near crawling pace the half mile to the dump zone. It was slightly faster back when he had no load, or the dumpster was empty, but the wasted time was adding up.

The blocked street had been covered in car chassis, garbage slides, and twisted knots of glass and steel that had fallen from the building over the years. The debris constantly shifted, making it hard to maneuver. A slip dragging a car chassis could leave him lying at the bottom of a heap, forcing to drag himself back up. More than once, a shifted piece of steel had dumped stacks of garbage cubes on him from a great height, adding to the mess. And not everything could be dragged. Some objects had to be carried or pushed, like an abandoned cargo container, which left a deep rut through the garbage and had taken the better part of two hours to move.

To put it more simply, GOBLY-N was frustrated. He had finally reached the dump site. He turned the dumpster over and poured out the mass of garbage, shaking the container to make sure every last bit got out. With a wearied sagging of his shoulders, he set about returning to the work site, dragging the dumpster behind him.

The walk back was uneventful, marking the four hundred and seventieth time that he had made the journey. The sun beat down mercilessly on his dust caked red and black plating. The occasional dust laden dry wind just spread the garbage around, evening out his disturbance. He noted without enthusiasm that a garbage pile he had cleared had been replaced by yet another slide of packed garbage. He let the dumpster go, and moved onto something else. He selected a car chassis at random.

It was half buried in garbage cubes, part of a greater tower of cubes that reached as high as some of the sky scrapers. Whoever had built the tower had decided that to incorporate the car into the thing, building around and over it. He grabbed the rear of the car, and pulled. It shifted and came loose, dust spiraling away in the wind. GOBLY-N pulled again dragging another few feet or so free. He gave it one last tug, and the entire thing came loose with a snapping sound. There was another loud crack, and then the sound of a million tightly packed yet poorly balanced things shaking. GOBLY-N looked up.

The face of the tower sagged, cubes falling to fill the gap. There was another ominous crack and more cubes began to fall lose of the tower, hitting the street and bursting into disorganized messes around the robot. And then slowly the tower began to collapse into the street, blotting out the sun in a roaring tidal wave of garbage. The only choice was to run. GOBLY-N turned and ran, almost in what amounted to a robotic blind panic. He made a jump over a pile of discarded paper, landing poorly because of the missing arm. Garbage fell like a hail around him, confusing his eyes and motion sensors. He had ten seconds before the wave of garbage would bury him. He ran blindly, feeling every movement feel like it was swimming against a sea of molasses.

He came out of the garbage cloud like a whirling dervish. But the run was hardly over, and he was far from safe. The tower of garbage that had stood across the street shook as well. GOBLY-N was coming to a sickening realization. The street he had momentarily escaped into was blocked in my mounds of compacted garbage and piled cars. The tower was looking to collapse right on top of him, crushing him into dust. He couldn't try climbing his way out, sighing over the missing arm. He looked frantically over the area for an escape route, the seconds ticking away.

He looked down, knowing he was likely doomed. He had thirty seconds. He noticed the cracks in the asphalt, the details perhaps clearer in his last few moments, or just the high definition of screen. He punched the cracks, sending chips of asphalt flying the air. There was nothing but dark beneath, inches beneath the road. GOBLY-N punched the ground again, widening the hole.

He began to hammer the road with all three loads, pieces of rubble flying through the air. He had ten seconds left. The whole was only a meter and a half wide, and progress was slow by comparison of the garbage slide. He hammered the ground again, cracks spreading.

And then the tower finally collapsed in one unstoppable force, crushing all before it. To GOBLY-N, he had fallen into a murky abyss.

As he fell below the street, he felt a viscous liquid all around as he was forced down to the depths by an unimaginable force. After a storm of thrashing and desperately trying to escape, he finally touched bottom. For a few moments, he just lay still. Then he stood, still under water, and began to move through the stygian dark. His eyes could not pierce the pitch black water that surrounded him, and he did not know deep he was. He may have wandered in circles for awhile, till he found a wall, and without any better options, began to follow it.

For a while, it was just an eternity of blindly following the outline of the wall. His internal clock showed he'd miss his return deadline in less than three hours. But he couldn't worry about that now. The only thing that mattered was escaping the murky depths of this tunnel. He felt something brush gingerly against his leg, and then quickly draw away. He ignored it.

Eventually, his feet found a slope of rubble. He stumbled slightly as he walked up the rubble, slipping on algae covered concrete. After a few more minutes of near blind stumbling, his head broke the surface of the water. There was no light, but the pressure was gone, and there a modicum of space that was out of the water. His eyes switched to low light sensors, and he studied the room around him.

It took a moment, but he slowly began to realize what lay before him. It was a tunnel, all very even and well made. The water he had pulled himself out of was contained in a downward section, doubtless leading to greater subterranean depths. The tunnel stretched off into the distance, disappearing around a curve, while dozens of tiny side tunnels led off from the main tunnel. Water dripped from the ceiling in flashes of white as his low light sensors caught the movement, the only sound the little pats as the water hit the concrete. A sign had been nailed to the wall, the steel rusted and pitted by centuries of moisture and time. GOBLY-N took careful note of the message.

BNL Wast Ma gem t

Juncti 39 N rth

S le l 1

The bottom of the sign had been painted over, and another message had been written in a more frantic hand, carved into the steel with a knife of some sort.

They always watch.

GOBLLY-N stored this away for later. With out a backwards glance at the sign or the water filled tunnel behind him. His claws clacked on the concrete as he followed the tunnel.

A small blue light pulsed momentarily in the water filled tunnel. It wasn't bright, nearly unnoticeable in the darkness. It seemed to writhe for a moment like it tasted the water, and then it disappeared.

The tunnels turned out to part of the city's massive sewer system. There were more signs scattered every so often, to a greater or lesser degree of legibility. Some denoted a place or a duty, while others had been vandalized with the same odd message. But GOBLY-N read them all, storing away a pic capture for later use.

He had a vague idea of the Axiom's location; the powerful inter comm communication units that kept the fragmented communication network had signals that even reached through the city streets. But it was confused, echoes of communication transmissions bouncing randomly through the tunnels. GOBLY-N couldn't patch himself in, but he heard little sips of messages.

"Lower that beam. Ste-"

"This is security team 3 at point 2, all'-"

"So as I was say-"

And so on. It was all meaningless to GOBLY-N, just little turns of phrase with no value. He was aware of the humanity's store in group socialization, but it was all so pointless, so wasteful and time consuming. It was something he'd noticed even in the repair robots that had essentially rebuilt him, sometimes out of the blue asking each other about friends or events of past days.

He passed through a gallery of concrete, draped in layers and curtains of mold and algae. The sheets of would loom before hi like pale ghosts, blinding him momentarily as moved through them. The next room turned out to be a massive chamber, with darkness that not even his eyes could penetrate hiding the roof and far wall. He made his way to the floor, avoiding the rusty and disintegrating ladders in favor of making his way down by the slopes of water slick concrete. He dug his talons into the concrete with each bit of ground he gained.

When he finally reached the ground, he carefully moved across the floor searching the ground for any potential pit that may have been opened by centuries of water a drop at a time. He came across a canal that lay directly in the center of the room, running from one side to another like the equator. It was there GOBLY-N witnessed one of the strangest migrations every recorded by any eyes.

Thousands of cockroaches scuttled along the walls and floor of the canal, even across each other. He'd never seen there like before. Each flashed beneath his eyes like a precious diamond. He carefully inserted his hand into the mass, making sure not to crush one of the small creatures, but the cockroaches only swarmed over and around it. A few made a curious dash up his arm, but then flittered off on glistening wings back into the mass. GOBLY-N took a pic capture of one as it opened its wings and flew past his face.

There were other creatures among the mass. Rats the size of small dogs scuttled along in packs among the roaches, young clinging to their back. Each one was a feral thing, thin and oily, fur disheveled. There eyes gleamed green in GOBLY-N's eyes, and he took another pic capture. The rats seemed oblivious to the cockroaches in their scuttling horde.

There was something among them that GOBLY-N couldn't classify. It was like someone had set back the clock of evolution, and some intermediary form between lizard and snake had been born unto the world. It seemed to slither forward, yet it pulled itself forward on two clawed feet with deceptive speed. Among the mass of other beasts it stood out like an elephant, easily ten feet long and two feet tall. The cockroaches and rats gave it space, a small moving clearing forming around the beast. It stopped momentarily to sniff to study GOBLY-N's hand. It stopped, closed its eyes and breathed in, opening its mouth to reveal a mouth with double rows of fangs and a coiled whip like tongue. GOBLY-N took a picture of the creature as it studied his hand in that moment.

Then with a resigned snort, it set off again. In that short time, it had been passed by the bulk of the migration, the last few skittering cockroaches and rats just passing it. Within a few moments all that was left were a few crushed cockroaches and animal droppings. GOBLY-N pulled himself into the canal. He stared down the way the creatures had come from. The little ecological knowledge he had suggested rather unclearly whether the creatures would actually live side by side in peace like this. It was vaguely suggested that a mass migration of this sort was not normal. He turned to follow the creatures.

And then a voice spoke in his head, clear.

"I don't know what were going to do with it, but John recommended it be dismantled and destroyed. "

"Not seeing too much of a flaw in his logic, Captain."

"I know, I know. Anyway, any word on TYP-R and Auto?"

"We're seeing minor recovery of core functions. We might see them up and talking in a few days time if all go's well."

GOBLY-N turned back to the signal source. It was loud and clear. And it had come from the direction the creatures had fled. There was no other option, and that way led the chance of freedom.

He set off into the dark.


	8. Desperation

Chapter 8

"Desperation"

The signal became clearer and clearer as he made his way through the tunnels. But he also noticed the change in the tunnels. No water dripped here, and the walls wee covered in layers of spongy material. Sounds were muted, and it was steadily growing warmer and more humid. It was after an hour of traveling that he found the first signs of trouble.

He had entered a larger tunnel from one of its connectors when he stepped on something that cracked dryly beneath his foot. He stopped and knelt down, examining what he had trod on. It was the crushed remains of a large skull, the profusion of broken fangs identifying it as formerly belonging to that of one of the sewer reptiles, but much bigger. The jaw bone was nearly half a yard in length on its own, the fangs ten centimeter in length on average.

The rest of the skeleton lay behind it. The body lay like I had been tossed there to rot, the bones covered in layers of mold. The beast had been at least fourteen feet in length. Yet it had been killed rather violently. The ribs were all cracked, and the remains of the legs were little more than powder. Bits of bone splinters were scattered across the ground. Something had crushed it to death with great force, that much was certain, and then left after stripping the corpse.

He left the chamber and its long dead occupant behind, moving silently down a side tunnel. He crawled across a rubble pile, and forced his way through a gap in a wall into another tunnel. The ground rustled with every step, like it was covered in a sea of dead leaves. A cursory examination showed it to be a pile of dead cockroaches that had been spread across the tunnel, and reached three feet up the walls. GOBLY-N quickly reoriented himself on the signal, and crunched his away across the tunnel.

The cockroaches thinned out as he followed the signal, completely disappearing when he found a wide concrete stairwell. His first step scattered piles of tiny bones, setting a clacking chorus of bone that sounded like a monstrous roll of a dice. The bones were also piled deep, hundreds of rat skulls leering out of the mass. He took a pic capture, and jumped the rest of the way down the stairs.

The tunnel after the stairs had the hint of a glow in it, a lightening of the all encompassing darkness. The signal still burned bright. It seemed there was hope after all as he came around the corner. The darkness was edged with blue now, a light azure that refracted amongst the shadows. He began to run, forgetting about silence, the click of his feet on stone echoing amongst the tunnels.

The tunnel ended in a wall of bright, glowing blue fungus. It was looked like a pile of old tooth paste, but it was covered in bristling colonies of gently waving tendrils. He reached out and stroked a colony, careful not to cut the membrane. The tendrils stopped waving and began to gently encircle his hand. They left a slimy coating of translucent, blue mucus over his hand. The whole wall began to shudder is a spastic series of tremors. The colonies of tendrils stood stock still, tendrils locked straight. GOBLY-N took a step back, warily raising his one remaining arm to defend himself.

The fungus contracted with a fleshy rasp, opening to reveal a blue fungus coated expanse. GOBLY-N studied the tunnel before him, then with what amounted to a shrug, passed through the opening. It shuddered closed behind him with another fleshy rasp. He turned his head to look at it. No going back.

The tunnel ahead of him was coated with a layer of the same blue glowing fungus. More of the tentacle colonies spotted the wall. Thick cables of rippling tissue ran along the wall along the tunnel walls. There was an odd hissing sound in the air, like the sound of a balloon pierced by a minute pin. Every movement was muffled by the layers of fungus around him. He reached out and touched one of the cables.

It undulated at the touch of his hand, causing GOBLY-N to draw his hand back. The hissing became more urgent. The glow intensified, adding a blue luster to everything. The tentacle colonies began to snap their little tentacles in frenzy. The cable broke of the wall with a sickening glop.

The cable's tip turned, without any eyes, to study him. It seemed to sniff the air like a tracking dog. More of its length broke off, twisting with a gentle movement that rolled like a wave. GOBLY-N leaned into study it, reaching out again to touch it

And then the tentacle was a blur, wrapping around the robot's neck and pulling. There was a series of glops as other cables ripped themselves from the walls. Two grabbed his legs, tripping him. Another wrapped around his chest and squeezed, eliciting an ominous creak of steel. Another wrapped around his arm, and bound it closed. GOBLY-N struggled like a whirling dervish, every movement causing the cables to grip tighter.

The hissing was now nearly deafening. Atop of that, there was the sound of water rushing. It seemed to emanate from the far end of the tunnel. GOBLY-N forced his head to face this new threat. He might have gasped if he could. The cables pulled tighter.

There were dozens of writhing tentacles coming in a mucus covered wave right at the robot. Each one had dozens of cup sized suckers. Each was as thick as an oil drum, a mass of muscle. It was like a rushing wall of glistening flesh, coiling in an unstoppable sledgehammer blow. It hit like GOBLY-N like a fist from a god, throwing him back against the flesh door. Within seconds, the tentacles were wrapped around him, covering every square inch of steel. The tentacles tensed, and there was a groan of steel. GOBLY-N struggled, but it was like a cat fighting a mountain. He was smashed against the wall, cracking one of his optic units.

He was mildly aware he was being pulled back to wherever the tentacles had come from. The rushing of the mucus covered limbs drowned out the creaks of steel plates grinding against his insides. The felt the suckers cutting away at his paint job, the slight hiss of weak acids leaking onto his face. He flexed his arms, earning another squeeze from the tentacles, cracking the damaged optical unit more.

Then there was feeling that the tentacles had exited the tunnels into a great space. And then quite suddenly, the tentacles were gone, and he was falling, limbs flailing. He was in a massive sewer outfall, one where thousands of gallons of water had once flowed. There a bright blue glow that made it seem like he was falling into a perfect summer sun. Something roared beneath him.

GOBLY-N knew some of BNL's secrets. He was one of them, first and foremost. He was also aware that once Operation Clean Up had been given up, the entirety of BNL'S bio weapons had been "flushed" into the sewers of some cities to die. Some of it was relatively harmless, maybe something that made corn unpalatable, or killed off cows when put in the water supply. Some were incredibly dangerous like flesh eating bacteria, while others were genetically engineered war beasts. No one had expected any of it to survive, giving it nothing more than a backwards glance as it was dumped, and since no one was coming back to Earth, what was the point?

Of course, everything fights to survive. Who knew what secret wars had been fought in this very sewer, as biological abominations hunted each other in the dark, feasting in the shadows of their supposed tombs. But seven hundred years had produced one victor, one king of the dark. A file opened in his mind, a few pages of reports on a combined animal-bacterium, part squid part mold, a terror weapon that was meant to look scary and distract. It made no mention of whether it stopped growing, or whether it might be intelligent. The roar came again, issuing from a translucent beak that looked like it was made of glass.

He was falling straight at that gaping maw, only ten meters from the glistening insides of the monster. He took in the beast. It was made of that same blue fungus, yet lighter than the fungus outside the chamber. Two black eyes stared at him with the intensity of an alien intelligence watching him from the depths of the Marianas Trench. It was secured on a massive pedestal of concrete that dominated the center of the chamber. Massive tentacles wreathed it like Medusa's hair, writhing in animal anticipation. The maw seemed like that of parrot, but a nest of tentacles nested in the place of its tongue.

He landed in the maw with a thud. The maw closed with a liquid quickness, roofing him in. GOBLY-N punched it once, but I was solid a steel plate. The tentacles had begun their subtle embrace of his lower body. One whipped around and caressed his face with a slap of wet flesh. There was a hum.

The tentacles glowed brighter for a moment, tips brightening like light bulbs. Then with a snap crack that sounded like a lightning strike in his audio receptors, they let loose a pulse of electric energy. GOBLY-N spasmed once, and was still. The tentacles began to drag his still form deeper into the beast. He was dragged into a chamber, a stomach of sorts. The tentacles unwrapped themselves from his limbs, and left him there.

Acid began to seep into the liquid around him from the fleshy walls of the monster. He was submerged in a sense, the insides of the beast almost a lake in there own right. GOBLY-N lay still.

He was home, the temple at the center of his mind. The wasteland that the central mission core had burned into his mind was being repaired, covered by a fresh layer of plain grass. The statues had been cleaned. He lay with his back against his favorite, or perhaps he considered it more than that, but he was happy here. Hi whole body hurt, every inch engaged in a new kind of pain, like slowly being roasted alive by the coals of a giant bonfire.

The sky was so blue, so perfect. The clouds were so fluffy and symmetrical. He took little notice that one f his eyes showed the world like that of a deformed fly, or that blood was slowly dripping from one his arms, or at least where one should have been. A robin flew overhead, chirping happily. Crickets called in the grass to one another. One hopped clear over his head.

He watched tentacles dance amidst the grass, a pic capture of the outside world. They all seemed to form the arches of the temple, waving as they reformed and reshaped themselves. He wearily raised an arm and waved back. The tentacles waved again.

The crickets seemed to be speaking, little crackly voices like those of the inter comm.

"It's sad that we have to take it apart. It's a fine machine."

"It nearly killed someone."

"I know that, but we could use the helping hand. Looks like it could drag tons by its lonesome."

"Listen, this thing is a good deal more dangerous than that GOBLY-N one. Better to seal it away forever under guard and forget it."

"You're right. But you know its weird, no unit designation or anything? Maybe it's not BNL."

"Could be. Could be."

Fear and desperation can concentrate the mind wonderfully. GOBLY-N was already pulling himself up, the pain redoubling, staining the statue with droplets of blood. He looked up at the statue's face, at the beauty he saw there. He smiled weakly, closing his eyes, even as he reached for something that he knew he should never touch, a secret buried for the worst times.

He opened his eyes.

The GOBLY-N unit was designed with quite few interesting features. One was a cup holder, put in for the sheer banality. Others included an array of hacker protocols that could strip away even the best computer system's defense protocols, an array of concealed weapons, reactive camouflage paint, a hand bag sized fusion reactor, and a learning AI, which can activate several contingency programs.

At this juncture the concealed weapons and one of those contingency programs concern the following events.

The beast growled as its most recent victim moved within its gut. It was not used to anything getting up again after being rushed and stunned and then bathed in acid. It was also not used to the explosion that ripped a good deal of its side apart. GOBLY-N made a jump from the gaping wound, landing higher up on the creature. It was a mass of roaring rage, coated in blue flesh. It roars drowned out the beast's cries of pain, voice caster at max gain. Its claws dug up divots of flesh with each bounding step, leaving a trail of ruined fungus flesh.

GOBLY-N made a charge at the beast's head; even as the tentacles came down to block his every step. The air filled with shrapnel as he launched his other last chance grenade, blasting holes in several tentacles. He'd bought himself six seconds, which was slightly more than he needed.

He made a one more jump, and with a sickening splat, crashed through the two meter wide pupil. His feet touched the bottom of the gelatinous eye socket, and GOBLY-N began to burrow madly with his three remaining limbs to get at what lay behind. He could see the shadow of the tentacles above him. Two seconds.

He pulled himself through the gap he had dug into the beast's head. And before him lay its brain, a dark blue expanse ten meters across, pulsing gently. And like the animal he had become, he began to tear into the flesh. A cloud of blue blood swirled around him as he cut into its brain with his claws. He could hear the roars from the beast as he killed it, one stroke at a time. He roared back, muffled by the liquid around him, but loud nonetheless.

It was a surprise when a tentacle grabbed his legs, dragging him backwards from the head, dripping with gore back through the eye socket. Even as the beast slowly died, it wasn't going to give after seven hundred years. As GOBLY-N was hoisted into the air, almost every tentacle grabbed, again forming another fleshy cocoon.

Then as one, they surged up and crashed through the ceiling of the chamber.


	9. For Its Own Sake

Author's Note

Thanks for the help so far guys. By the way, Chapter 10 will be the end of Part 1.

Chapter 9

"For Its Own Sake"

It was Market Day. It was something of a bi-monthly festival, part barter session, part celebration, part communal get together. Thousands of humans and robots mingled along one of the great boulevards, talking, laughing and generally being alive. There was a murmur of a thousand conversations, the smell of vat grown chicken being grilled over charcoal pits, and recorded music blasting from dozens of speakers. The crowd was like a roiling sea of motion, an example of organized chaos imprinted on a world slowly being rebuilt.

It all seemed like madness to Wall-E, who's head placed his line of sight around the average human knee cap. It was like moving through a forest of rapidly moving logs. His only point of reference was Eve, and it was a constant game of keeping up with her as she hovered through the crowd. Wall-e ducked past a market stall covered with dust covered machine parts, a few robots examining this servo or that battery. It wasn't approved of by the repair ward, but every robot had quietly begun to stock pile spare parts, just in case.

Eve had led Wall-e into the area called the Square. If Wall-e had been one of those types who grasped a few more abstract concepts, he might have wondered why there was a fascination among humans with naming almost every single important event or place with capital letter, even when it was a simple thing like an open space. But he didn't and he marveled at the hundreds of stalls that covered the former intersection. There was a statue that dominated the very center, the bronze figure worn away by centuries of lashing rain and driving sand storms, whoever it had commemorated long forgotten. Hardy plants had grown in the shattered skull like a flower pot. It was a splash of green among the red dust covered buildings.

Eve had stopped to regard the statue, floating silently. Wall-e rolled up next to her. Eve seemed fine, and they had been given a few days off just to make sure. Wall-e wasn't sure whether or not Eve was normal again, and resolved himself to find out.

"Eva?" Wall-E asked, holding up his hand and spreading the fingers open. Eve turned to him, and her eyes changed into upturned crescents, her smile. She held up her hand as well, and slid her fingers into his. They both laughed. There were two hollow _krumps_ from beneath them, lost in the noise of the crowd.

Eve leaned forward and put her face against Wall-E's. She giggled, and a spark passed between the pair. Wall-E sighed happily, and his head sagged slightly. There was a thud, causing the concrete to crack slightly. The two robots ignored it , lost in the moment. There was another thud, spreading a spider web of cracks across the ground. A few people noticed, but kept moving on.

The statue seemed to tilt to the left, and then settle back down. Cracks were spreading up its pedestal, accompanied by another thud. There was a faint screeching. Eve looked up, cocking her head to the left. Wall-E raised his eye brows in confusion. There was now a large crack in the concrete, causing even a few humas to take notice. Eve and Wall-E moved closer, still holding hands.  
And then the ground exploded.

Chunks of concrete were thrown through the air,, smashing into market stalls. The screeching was deafening, the blue glow blinding. Eve and Wall-E had been thrown through the air like rag dolls, spinning wildly. People started screaming, and there was the sound of thousands of feet running.

It was all Eve could to keep in the air. She was confused, the blue glow making it hard to see where she was going. Wall-E was like a dead weight, dragging her down, but she refused to let go. She just flew, trying to keep herself and Wall-E from smashing into the ground. There was another bout of screeching, muting everything else. Eve felt something massive swing by her, missing by a matter of inches, spraying her with moisture.

Eve caught a faint glint of glass, and powered toward it. It was a large cart, flipped on its side, several pieces of scavenged jewelry scattered on the ground. Eve set Wall-E down, checking him over to make sure he was okay. The small robot was shaking visibly, and Eve realized there was a mild tremor running through her body. She realized that they had gotten very lucky.

"Stay here," she said, readying her ion cannon. Wall-E tapped his hands together nervously. Eve wasn't sure he'd heard her over the screeching, but she hoped he wouldn't do anything... well , silly. She checked over the edge of the cart.

The Square was missing its middle thirty meters. She realized that the thing that had missed her had been a tentacle, one of the dozen or so that filled the air, several forming a tight knot around something, squeezing it. There were several people lying around the hole, not moving. Dead or unconscious, Eve wasn't sure, but every minute they were near that hole, the less likely they were to make it to safety. The screeching came again, but this time there was a bellow in response, erupting from the knotted cluster of tentacles. Eve knew full well what made that noise. The GOBLY-N was somehow involved in this

A clawed hand was flailing wildly between a gap in two tentacles. It grabbed a hold of some of the blue flesh and ripped a chunk of with barely a seconds pause. It repeated this again, eliciting another screech of pain from the hole. It did this with the precision of a blind butcher, cutting savage gashes in the tentacles.

Eve sighted on the mass of tentacles, targeting reticules forming over the twisting forms. If she hit the tentacles, then that hurt whatever was in the hole. If she hit the GOBLY-N, then she might stun it long enough for the tentacles to kill it. Either way a monster was going to be removed from the Earth. Win win for her. Eve fired.

The blast of ion fire hit squarely in the middle of the tentacles, liquefying flesh with its heat. Those tentacles that had survived with a severe scorching twisted in pain, accompanied by a scream of animal pain. This resulted in the GOBLY-N being flung like a sag of stones from the grasp of tentacles, the blue smoke of ion burns wafting of its shell. It managed to land on its feet with a clang, not ten feet from Eve's cover, claws cutting furrows in the concrete in a flurry of sparks. Blue slime and charred flesh fell of its armor in sickening clumps. It roared again, and there was a slight movement on its leg. A piece of steel popped out of the right hip, and GOBLY-N grabbed it without looking.

It was a knife of sorts, at least by comparison to the size of the robot. It was two feet long, and had a serrated edge that looked like it could cause a horrible gash even if it missed. A tentacle swept down right at GOBLY-N's head, blurring with speed. And then quite simply, GOBLY-N wasn't there, and ten feet of the tentacle were on the ground, cut off and writhing as the nervous system died.

Eve watched the GOBLY-N attack in a mix of disgust and horror. Every movement seemed to be directed to kill. The blade flashed, decapitating another tentacle, spraying blue sludge through the air. Another tentacle found itself cut neatly down the middle, split like a banana peel. The screeching had reached a new crescendo.

It seemed like a new set of tentacles had arisen, but they ignored the GOBLY-Each one reached out by touch and grabbed something. One curled around a lamp post, snapping it in half, and let it go, continue to search blindly. Others forced them through the concrete like they were stakes. It seemed the glow was rising, becoming more intense. A few more meters of concrete cracked and fell into the hole.

The creature pulled most of its body up through the whole like the rise of a worm from an apple. Its ruined eye was just an empty crater, dark blue blood leaking from the socket in a stream. Its beak clacked once, and it continued its screeching. The tentacles seemed to move faster now that the beast could see its attacker. Eve watched as a tentacles tried to sweep the feet from under the GOBLY-N, which the robot dodged by jumping straight into the air, where a second tentacle smashed into it, sending the robot flying. It hit the ground twenty meters, rolling and sparks flying, and was back on its feet with barely a pause. An armored plate fell loose with a clang.

The GOBLY-N was forced to be more careful, every attack more thought out. But it was still much faster and much more intelligent than the crazed beast before it, whose single remaining eye whirled madly as it fought. Another tentacle was separated from the beast, and it was quickly apparent that there wouldn't be many left if the ferocious rate of attrition continued.

But the GOBLY-N didn't wait. Knee deep in gore and tentacles, it charged. A pair of tentacles blocked its path , but both were quickly sent reeling by a flurry of slashes from the knife, ichor spraying. Ten feet from the beast it leapt into the air, knife raised . It slammed down on the beast's head with a squelch. . The GOBLY-N started slashing madly into beast's flesh like a butcher. And then with one final slash, it crawled into the hole it had cut like a parasite entering its host.

The beast groaned. Its tentacles flailed weakly, more and more slowly waving the air. One by one they fell like someone had cut a puppet's strings. The beast's mouth opened and closed slowly, like it was trying to form words, the only sound a procession of moans, slowly getting quieter with each passing second. The last thing that stopped moving was the remaining eye, its mad whirling slowly ending, which finally glazed over as the beast died. The blue glow began to dim and fade away.

Eve slowly floated over the cart, motioning for Wall-E to stay behind. She had her ion cannon trained on the wound cut into the head of the beast for any sign of the GOBLY-N. Eve was nearing the beast's corpse when the GOBLY-N reemerged to complete this gruesome panorama

It was coated with gore, pieces of blue flesh sticking to joints and ridges in its armor. Eve could see acid burns that had made section of plates sag, and ion scorches that streaked its chest. The GOBLY-N was slowly moving down the face of the beast, wiping the knife blade on its thigh, only succeeding in wiping away a few bits of brain tissue that still clung to the serrated edge of its knife. Apparently satisfied, it reinserted the knife back into its sheath. It wasn't even looking at Eve, even though Eve was within ten feet and had her ion cannon aimed at its head.

Wall-E poked his head around the wreck of the cart.

"Eva?" Wall-E asked, breaking the silence

The GOBLY-N looked up. It took a step toward Eve. And in response, Eve fired. The GOBLY-N threw itself to one side and rolled, the shot passing a meter from its shoulder, hitting the corpse of the beast, liquefied flesh spraying through the air. Eve turned and braced for a charge, but the robot only passed her in a blur. No claws flashed before her eyes, she was not battered from the air by a kick to the face. There was only a rapid click of claws and a startled yell from Wall-E. Eve realized she had made a mistake.

She turned to a scene that would inhabit her nightmares for the rest of her existence. The GOBLY-N had Wall-E in its hand, holding him like a toy, and a toy that could be easily discarded. Wall-E was shaking, clattering loudly. The GOBLY-N turned its head towards Eve, who's ion cannon was wavering as she tried to find a way to hit the robot and not Wall-E, back towards Wall-E, and then back at Eve. Something seemed to click in its mind.

It laughed. It was a laugh that sounded like it had been created by someone who understood the concept of laughter, and may have even heard it once or twice. It sounded like a mix between a dog's chew toy being squeezed rapidly and the scraping of sand paper over rusty metal. The GOBLY-N's soldiers rose up and down, mimicking a reaction to a particularly funny joke. Its eyes tightened into a pair of thin lines, a crack running through one. Eve raised her ion cannon again, but lowered it immediately when GOBLY-N held Wall-E up like a small shield.

The only thought going through Eve's mind was simple: "No, not again. I'm not losing him again."

The GOBLY-N turned and began to walk through the carnage of the Square, laughter still echoing. Eve watched it go, ion cannon half raised. The GOBLY-N walked almost casually, seeming to have not a single care in the world. Eve began to follow it. The GOBLY-N turned its head back to look. And began to run.


	10. Price of Forgiveness

Chapter 10

"Price of Forgiveness"

It was not a complicated creature. Only three thoughts crossed it mind, things that had crossed the minds of humankind when it had stood around their fires on the darkest nights of pre-history, when the shadows had crept closer and the eyes that always watched were getting closer.

It looked over its shoulder. The eyes were blue, worried, and incredibly angry. They were getting slowly closer. He sped up, dust starting to cloud behind him.

But back to the thoughts. They were simple, and overall very direct.

Escape

It passed through the outskirts of the town. The Axiom loomed, a mile ahead of it.

Survive

The eyes were catching up.

Protect.

Time was running out.

* * *

Burn-E sighed. The cargo bay was a hotbed of activity, the sound hemmed in now that the cargo doors at one end had been shut. He stood motionless in the middle of it all. He didn't want to do this, be here or get involved in whatever was going on. It didn't feel right, and he shook his head slightly at the thought. But he was a welding unit, so they needed someone to cut the joints off the hunter.

It was funny in a way, Burn-E thought. There wasn't any designation marking on the robot that had been set in the center of the room, and no one had bothered looking too hard. An electronic boot had been clamped to its head, and a force field strap had been placed across its back. Someone had even put chains on the front arms like it was a circus animal. Stewards and security guards formed a loose perimeter around it, watching it for anything.

There was a group of repair bots, led by Senior, clustered in a group near the hunter, waiting for their part of the operation. They were going to have the job of pulling the robot's "brain". It needed to be put in storage, cut off from any energy source and hidden away. No one wanted a rogue intelligence plugged into a computer by some later generation and have it turn out that it was completely insane.

Burn-E's job was rather simpler. Cut the limbs from the body, as well as the bolt launchers. Simple enough. It just felt wrong. He couldn't define why, didn't even understand the doubts before him. Somewhere in the back of his mind there was the inkling that an element of some great truth that had always existed, and would always plague him for the rest of his life because of these next few minutes.

"Burn-E, we're ready to start," said Senior, the repair team begin to ready behind him. Burn-E sighed and turned on his torch, the little blue flame activating with a squeak. He wheeled over to the robot, right next to the left arm shoulder joint. It was a bit of a reach, but it would be coming down not going up, so it wasn't going to be a problem. He raised the cutting torch.

It seemed that there was a heavy knock on the chamber doors. Burn-E stopped, and the security guards turned towards the door, perplexed expressions on their faces, or in the cases of the robots a certain posture that showed mild confusion. The decommissioning was more or less a secret. Only essential personal had been told. The knock came again, and a small lump formed on the right door, like something had hit it with a sledgehammer. A few human guards reached for stun guns, while the stewards readied their containment fields. There was a buzz of readying weapons filled the cargo bay. There a third knock, but it was clearly the sound of metal hammering on metal, the doors bulging inward. A few guards backed behind more solid pieces of cover.

The fourth knock came, and the doors simple collapsed. They didn't fly through the air, and there was no dramatic explosion. They simple fell forward with a crash that all heavy objects make when they hit something marginally tougher than themselves. The GOBLY-N's momentum carried it through the doorway in a half dive. It landed on the floor with a crash to equal the doors. It looked at Burn-E with his torch inches from the hunter's left shoulder. It screamed.

It went on for approximately fifteen seconds. It was that kind of piercing scream that borders on the sound that mice hear when things with talons see them from the sky and what one could call the cries of the damned. It was deafening, echoing and re-echoing within the cargo bay. Humans had to cover their ears, and more that one robot warbled as its sensors were blinded. A few human guards raised stunners.

The GOBLY-N raised its remaining arm, and it his upturned hand he held a still shaking Wall-E. Every stunner was lowered and every containment field shut down. Wall-E was a talisman, the very symbol of hope of the colony. He was a hero. He'd brought them home. They'd never forgive themselves if they screwed up and hit him. Burn-E very quickly shut off the cutting torch, and backed away from the hunter.

The GOBLY-N gestured to the door, and his intent was rather clear. Every guard made a slow walk to the door, trying to keep their eyes on the GOBLY-N. Burn-E tried to follow, but the GOBLY-N blocked any path that he could see. After a few minutes, the guards and repair bots had formed a cordon around the outside of the door, all ready to charge in. The GOBLY-N advanced on the hunter, where Burn-E

It moved slowly, like it really didn't care there was mob of guards quite willing hunt down if it made a wrong move. It walked right up to the hunter. It paused. A few sparks fell from a hole in its armor plates.

It very carefully set the Wall-E down without even looking. Wall-E looked at Burn-E, gesturing to follow. Burn-E gestured for Wall-E to run, waving his clamp hand frantically. He had realized that the GOBLY-N hadn't meant for him to get out of this room untouched. Wall-E turned to leave, looking back for a second at Burn-E, and then speeding away. The GOBLY-N was kneeling right in front of the hunter, looking right into its visual units, ignoring Wall-E's departure.

The GOBLY-N began to make a slow inspection of the hunter. Burn-E realized that staying alive for a few more minutes depended on him not running. He heard the GOBLY-N move almost silently in its little circuit of the robot. There was the sound of whispering something in machine code. After a minute or two, he felt the GOBLY-N had pause behind him like a massive shadow.

Burn-E hung his head. Better to end it all quickly. He thought he felt something being raised behind him. He closed his eyes and sighed. Life he reflected could have been worse. He expected a swift blow that would separate his head from his shoulders.

What he got was a cry of rage and an ion blast. He was thrown to the floor. There was another ion blast and a roared challenge from the GOBLY-N. It took him several moments to realize, that against the odds, he was still alive. He pushed himself onto his side.

The scene that greeted him was insane. The GOBLY-N was swiping madly at air, its clawed hands and feet often only missing Eve by inches. And the probe didn't seem to be any state to actually mind. She just seemed to fly like a very fast bee, jinking and shooting ion blasts. And not all of them were hitting on target. A good deal were just smashing into the walls, blowing away chunks of walls, or stacked cargo crates, spewing molten slag through the air. Burn-E shielded his face as an ion blast hit the ground not ten feet from him. He pushed himself back onto his wheel, moving to shelter behind the hunter. Another ion blast flashed past over head, impacting near the door, sending the guards and stewards ducking back into the doorway for cover.

Burn-E realized that the fight would end when one of the combatants was dead. The Eve probe looked like the sure winner by any measure, but one hit from the GOBLY-N's fist would be enough for him to gain the advantage. And that ion cannon was even more worrying. If it hit the wrong place, there was a chance a critical Axiom system could be damaged.

Burn-E made a decision. It would later be reflected that this was both the best and stupidest decision made in recent history.

* * *

Eve wasn't very sane at the moment. Of course, sanity will always be a technically relative term when applied to a robot. But the term works well enough.

She'd tried forging a life with Wall-E. He was the love of her life. The fact that he was a mass produced garbage compactor with a tape recorder was immaterial as the fact that she was an incredibly advanced botany probe armed with a high powered ion cannon. They'd moved on in ten years. Things were at a level of normalcy, and she learned to put away a decades worth of worry about their meeting, and Wall-E's near death at the hands of Auto into the mental equivalent of a small box under the bed. She'd been well and truly happy for a long time. Her life was simple.

And now that very carefully crafted little life had been shattered again. She'd nearly died. Wall-E had been threatened. There were dead and damaged stewards and EVE probes. There were people in the square who were most likely dead. And the GOBLY-N was at the core of it all. It had shattered the peace of this colony like a cannonade. It was chaos, antithesis of life. And it had brought back the doubts, worries, and anger like a slide show of her life. She could hear the damned thing's laughter in the back of her mind, taunting her as it pulled everything she'd worked for apart.

She fired her ion cannon again, clipping the GOBLY-N in the shoulder, sending it spinning to the ground. Ion fire danced across its body like it had been doused in napalm. Eve screamed at it, a wordless cry of all rage. She would end it here and now. She sighted and on the GOBLY-N's head and fired as it tried to smash out the ion flames.

The shot missed the robot's head by a meter, the GOBLY-N managing to roll just clear of the blast. Liquid metal was sprayed across its armor. The robot roared its pain at Eve. Eve sighted again.

The bolt missed Eve's head by a fraction of an inch. It passed her visor like it as sparrow. It hit the wall and stuck there. Eve made a run for cover, ducking behind a supply crate. She knew what it meant. Somehow, the GOBLY-N had reawakened the hunter, and now she'd just have the pleasure of destroying them both. Then everything would be fine and they'd be safe. It was a heartwarming thought. She checked her energy level for the ion cannon. Fifty percent, more than enough to finish both, even if each shot was at half power. She didn't want to drain the thing too quickly. She peered around the side of the crate.

The hunter was kneeling at the side of the GOBLY-N and was slowly putting out the ion flames with a methodical method of crushing the flame out with its hands. The GOBLY-N had stopped struggling, but it was looking straight into the face. Eve could just catch the sound of sing song machine code, like a nursery rhyme. She brought her ion canon up. With luck she could nail both in one shot. The hunter raised an arm, and without even looking, fired a hail of bolts at Eve.

Eve ducked back behind the crate. A bolt passed where here head had been, two more passing close to where she ion cannon had been. Another bolt came through the crate and passed between her left arm and torso.

Eve pulled herself together. She could still win this. She was faster. She readied her ion cannon

She charged around the side of the container again. The hunter grabbed her ion cannon with its left hand, directing it upwards in the same second that Eve fired. A sizable chunk of ceiling was vaporized, and little droplets of molten steel rained down. With its right it grabbed Eve by the head and body. Its face was in her face, the single green eye staring. It spoke in clear Axiom machine code, almost a slightly deeper version of Eve's.

"I really have no qualms about ending you right here, right now. None."

Eve flailed ineffectually with her one free hand at the face of the hunter, whose grip seemed to tighten slightly.

"One squeeze more and you're gone. Goodbye light, hello nothing."


	11. Interlude: Diagram

Interlude 1

"Diagram"

Peter Renblow reflected that anyone who though designing robots was easy, quick or intuitive had no right to even open there mouth during the design process, as he flicked through another page of designs. And then you got people who handed you a bunch of concept art work, a thirty page statement of purpose, a deadline and then said "Get cracking," watching for any sign of disagreement. BNL expected god results, and they were expected quickly. Peter looked out the full length window of sound proof glass on the left side of his office and watched the spectacle below.

Dozens of assembly lines twisted across the factory floor like a ball of snakes. An army of robotic arms filled a thousand tasks, assembling parts of robots, fusing them together. It was like a ballet, a million parts working in concert. True, there were people on the floor doing spot checks on assembly or making sure everything happened just right. But they were outcasts, standing out like roses on the moon. It was like the entire factory hadn't been built by human hands, and was a relic of some clockwork god.

Peter turned back to the designs before him. He realized it was a cross section of an EVE probe, and chuckled bitterly. The thing was a joke. It was a simple botany examination probe, meant to be stored on the star liners to explore Earth if Operation Clean Up took longer than expected, and for that it was pretty good, and he really was impressed by the micro processors they'd installed so it could recognize thousands of plant species. And yet someone of the project team had set their hearts on giving it a military grade assault weapon. It was his job to put the final approval stamp on any project that come through the Americas robotics office, but due to the red tape and chaos of the Operation Clean Up planning, he'd been notified half a year of the probe's final design after the production of the probe had ended.

And now the silly thing was now an example of what head office wanted in their new project. Peter ran his hand through his short grey hair and yawned. He checked his Rolex, the gold bright against his dark skin. It seemed like the day had slipped away into night, as the little hand reached the ten. He'd been going over the project specifications for six hours. He pulled out a copy of concept art, and chuckled again. The thing was a joke. It looked liked someone had watched too many kids cartoons. It had lots of showy flash, extra flairs of spines and spikes. Peter absent mindedly scratched out an arm that ended in an absurdly large gun. He sighed as he noted a pair of missile racks on the back. The head was a big square, a big square target. He wrote a note that they needed to change that in design. This was the basic model, and he hadn't had the heart to bring himself to look at the designs for the command models.

He set the concept work down and pushed his chair back. He stood and yawned again. He needed a cup of coffee, and a stretch. He was on auto pilot as he left his office, locking the door behind him as he stepped into the hall. His footsteps were muffled by the thick carpeting as he walked to the break room. He pulled open the door, and stepped onto the tile with a click. He was surprised someone was still here.

"Hey, Kilpatsky, late night too?" Peter said as he walked over to the liquid synthesizer.

Edwin Kilpatsky sat up a little, a turned towards Peter. He was young, still in his late twenties. His curly red hair was, and there were bags under his eyes. He was young for chief programmer of the robotics division.

"Oh hey, Peter. Turns out I've got another all nighter. Turns out that field testers found an error in the programming on at least half dozen robots on the star liners . Makes 'em erratic, and they won't follow orders. Head office wants it fixed before we hit production status for the robot crews. And you?"

"Got a pet project dumped on me. I really don't even know where to start," Peter said as he punched in the code for a cup of coffee. A cup slid out a slot and landed in the holder. The spout came down, and with a clunk, the coffee poured out.

"What is it?" Kilpatsky said as he stirred his own coffee, which had long gone cold, idly as he scrolled through lines of code on his laptop.

"Some kind of military project. They want … I don't really now. I'm half convinced it's a joke," Peter said, pouring a little cream into his coffee.

"Care if I make a guess?'

"Sure," Peter replied as he sat down across from Kilpatsky.

"They gave you the House of Myths, didn't they?"

"Nail on the head, Kilpatsky," Peter said, leaning back in his chair, "how'd you know?"

"They sent one my programming teams a list of software we'd need to design. A lot of experimental stuff. Learning intelligences, real time target identifier, mostly stuff we haven't got down pat yet. What do they want from you?"

"High strength steel plating for the outer shell, high durability internal hardware, and more than few high powered weapons. And all ready for a workable concept ready for a phase one prototype by next month."

"Leads to the question of why."

"Who knows? Maybe it really is just a pet project that got slipped into the Clean Up bill. Maybe the executives know something we don't, and got worried," Peter said, gulping down a large portion of his coffee.

"I can tell you one thing Peter; this project will be keeping us up for the next few months. I think I may have to move into the office."

"At least we'll be suffering together," Peter said, standing, balling the paper cup up, "Well no rest for the overworked. I'll be here another hour or so if you need me."

"See you tomorrow, Peter," Kilpastsky replied, already turning back to scanning the lines of code. Peter waved over his shoulder and walked out.

* * *

Peter didn't go home that night. In the morning, he found himself still at his drafting table, pencil in hand, long lines of half remembered notes and design changes. There was a little drool on one of the concept pieces, already defaced by several large cross marks across egregious design ideas. He sighed, and leaned back in his chair, checked his watch. Eight thirty, an hour before the factory lines started the new days run, as well as everyone got in.

He checked his pockets, and took out his cell phone. When he flicked it open, he noted he had two missed messages. He clicked a button, and a small list of contacts came up. He pressed the call button when he scrolled over the one marked home. He put the phone to his ear and waited. His wife picked up the phone on the third ring.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Dana, it's me Pete."

"Pete, where have you been? I was worried about you."

"Got a project dumped on me from on high, and it's not like I could say no to head office."

"Couldn't you bring it home or just look it in the morning?" Peter was sure he could hear a tone of condemnation in his wife voice. She was pushing him to work less, less nights where he got home at dark o'clock or not at all. And he had been cutting back, realizing he was a man of fifty eight trying to keep up in a world that favored the young,

"It's hush hush right now. An in-house thing, business secrets and all that."

"And who's going to steal a project from BNL? There's no competition."

"Who knows? Anyway, any news?" The design offices were almost an island in a communication sense. It wasn't uncommon for the engineers to be a few days behind current events with the ever increasing work load.

"Well, Don came by with his girlfriend."

"Really? I thought they had a dinner reservation somewhere."

"Apparently it was overbooked. So they stayed and had dinner with me."

"What his girlfriend's name? Jane? Jacky?"

"Jacquelyn, dear. She works security or some such at a warehouse complex downtown. It seems like you've missed the better part of two years."

"Meh, so I could bother to learn her name."

"Right, Pete. So anyway, are you coming home soon?"

"No, I've got to get this project organized and a design team doing the preliminaries by noon.

"Honey…"

"I'll try to get home after lunch. See you then."

"Love you, Pete."

"Love you too."

Pete shut the phone. He stretched his arms. He checked his watch again. He yawned and stood. He walked over to his window and watched the first people move onto the factory floor, ready to start the production lines right when the shift started. A million thoughts swirled through Peter's mind. And he came down to one question, which he spoke aloud.

"What's the worst that can happen?"

* * *

Author's Note: Just a quick Update. Thanks for all comments so far.


	12. Knife's Edge

Chapter 11

"Knife's Edge"

Eve did not like the box. It was three by three feet by three feet square, made of steel, and smelled of several centuries of dust. She had checked three times. The fact she couldn't move wasn't helpful either. There was just enough space for that she could lay in hibernation mode with her eyes open. The fact that that se was missing an arm was also somewhat disquieting, but she was focusing on the things that were immediately ahead of her, like getting out of the box, which she may or not be able to fix.

She slammed her remaining arm against the side of the box, making the small box fill with the resounding echo. She waited, counting the seconds. There was a reply in the form of a slamming fist into the side of the box, which Eve felt slide a few feet. Anything too loud got a reminder of her position. The box, for all its faults, was fairly sturdy. Now Eve just had less space, which was a loss. But she gained the knowledge her captor was never very far away.

Somehow, she was not comforted.

The hallway was filled with guards. They all looked ready to charge in to the room, but they relented. This was now a hostage situation. The hunter and GOBLY-N technically had two hostages. This was despite the fact that they could see Burn-E wheeling around the room putting out the fires with a fire extinguisher, and the GOBLY-N on the ground still slightly smoking from the ion fires.

The far more disturbing thought is was that no one could see the hunter. They were all aware it was in there, obvious because something seemed to kick the container Eve had been hidden. The smallest of doubts formed in every mind. Everyone wanted to be a hero. Of course, no one to have their head unscrewed from their shoulders to earn it. Most of "security" was off shift construction workers and the like with time to spare for a mostly esoteric job. So what ended up happening was a tight cluster of security near the opening but no one quite ended up in front of anyone else, forming a constantly shifting mob where everyone shuffled to and fro.

Senior was tired of waiting. He'd been quietly weighing his options, arms flexing slightly. On three hands, his directives told him he needed to assist the GOBLY-N, knowing that the damage it had suffered was far greater than before. On three others, his common sense weighed in that there was the unknown quantity of the hunter, and it had already hurt someone before and had a, careful to note, important hostage. Another hand reminded him that the hunter may have been under similar constraints as when the GOBLY-N had first arrived and was now free to make its own decision. His last hand asked how fast he could run if he really had to.

Of course, sitting here would resolve nothing. Eventually, someone would do something monumentally stupid and it would end in a blood bath. At least all he decided to do was just horrendously stupid, which was at least somewhat comforting. He began to move for the door. The other repair bots began to follow, whether through ingrained loyalty or blind obedience to their directives, Senior didn't know. The sound of their wheels rolling down the hall filled the quiet space.

The guards parted to let them through. One or two looked ready to speak. But hey seemed oddly ready to let them go. Senior was three feet from the threshold of the cargo bay when a steward hovered into his path, which Senior recognized as the watch commander, unit 60. He had a reputation for being uncompromising, even before the Axiom had returned to Earth. He'd even refused a name, preferring to be called simply by his unit number. There was still a faint scorch mark where Eve had shot him during the now famous showdown on the service decks between the rogue robots and the steward, and he'd steadfastly refused to have the scorches buffed out. In other words, he was still several mental miles from the forgiveness stage of "forgive and forget".

"Halt," 60 said simply.

"Don't do this, 60. There's someone hurt in there," Senior replied in machine code, rolling up to the steward and staring him in the eyes.

"You've got a good heart, Senior, but I think you're a little out of depth right now. It's not a someone, it's a _thing_," 60 said, also in machine code.

"I know my duty when I see it."

"Right. And my duty is the security of this ship and the protection of the people who live in and around it. Aiding the killing machine seems to violate that."

"It hasn't hurt anyone!"

"Regardless."

The corridor was silent again. This was a rare moment. The colonies administration was run with a united face, and cracks in that face had to be plastered over in private. A little doubt and the whole colony could fall apart. Most humans couldn't understand machine codes actual wording, but understanding robot body language wasn't difficult, especially when they were having a shouting match in front of a large crowd. 60 and Senior reached the same conclusion at the same time.

"You can go in, but at the first sign that it's going to turn on us, you're out and it's a security job," 60 said quickly, broadcasting in English so everyone could understand.

"Fine," Senior said, perhaps too harshly.

"One condition: I go in with you."

"Acceptable. Just don't try to be a hero."

"Not my job."

60 moved out of Senior's way without another word. The repair bots wheeled into the chamber, 60 following at the rear.

"Jan, you're in charge till I get back," said 60, the unspoken amendment to that sentence being "or get a metal bolt through the face".

It took a short amount of time to cross over to where the GOBLY-N lay. There was a lot of heat coming off it, like a stove that had been left off all night. Burn-E had rolled over, nervously tapping his hand together. The GOBLY-N stared up at Senior, the cracked eye making it seem especially pitiful. There were dozens of holes in its armor, each one a burned mess. Mot of the paint had flaked off because of the heat, the metal dull beneath. Something sparked inside, and there was a small cloud of smoke.

"Okay people, let's do this quickly. Fix what we can here to get it moving again," Senior said, readying his manipulators, a small laser saw activating on one arm.

"Uh-," was all that got out of 60's speaker before Senior's vision was filled up with a fist a few inches from his face. It had just seemed to appear out of the air, a mass of scarred blue metal. He heard a voice in a machine code, no doubt, originating from the head which was undoubtedly attached.

"Directive?"

"Err…," Senior began. There was clicking sound, and the fist was dropped slightly. Now Senior was forced to stare into the muzzle of a bolt launcher.

"Directive?"

"R-repair robot! I fix things. You understand that don't you?" Senior said hurriedly, the world shrinking to the muzzle of the bolt launcher. Senior could here 60 opening his containment field projectors very slowly.

There was a clicking sound, and the arm was raised, folding back against the hunter, which stepped out of the center of rough circle of repair droids with a single step. It gestured for Senior to continue, watching him closely.

"Let's get to work," Senior said.

The emergency section of the hospital ward was in pandemonium, the air filled with screams of pains, shouted orders for help, and the whir of surgeon robots trying to pull people back from the edge. Every few minutes brought another patient, another crisis. Some suffered from broken limbs, concussions and laceration. And those were the lucky ones. One man had an arm brutally amputated when a chunk of concrete had landed on it. A woman's entire left side was covered in acid burns.

The robots were silent. Each surgeon robot moved with grace, like a member of an angelic chorus. They were imperturbable, whether in the face of crushed limbs, shattered bone. McCrea watched as one medical bot restrained a thrashing patient while another injected a sedative. McCrea turned to the steward next to him. They had moved as far out of the way as possible, trying not to gum the works.

"How many, 23?"

"Ninety four cases of light to moderate injury all tended to. Seventy cases of severe to life threatening cases, currently with thirty in critical condition.

"And dead?" McCrea asked, bracing him for what he didn't want to hear.

"Twelve deceased. Ten missing," the steward said slowly. 23 was more or less the friendly face of security. He had what 60 didn't have: charisma. Most stewards had moved on to other job, but 23 had brought in people and robots that had no experience but had a willingness to use their off time for something meaningful. He had kept it simple, make sure no one walked onto a construction or demolition site in the middle of the night, and beyond that it was just another job. He understood, at least in a detached way, how humans thought. McCrea winced but kept going on.

"Missing?"

"We think they may have fallen into that hole that… thing ripped in the ground. We're trying to shift the creature, but we can't bring anything too heavy in, or it might just collapse the rest of the area."

"Can you get into the sewers?"

"Same problem. When that thing died, is death spasms flooded the system and brought down the remaining clear tunnels. Everything else down there is a potential biohazard."

McCrea slumped against the wall, and sank to the floor and put his head in his hands. His shoulders shook once, and 23 caught a stifled sob.

"Sir?"

"Nothing, nothing," McCrea said, his voice low, "Just tell me, what started this whole mess."

"Reports are contradictory at best and incomprehensible at worst."

"Give me the overall picture."

"At 3:23:19 Standard Time, two thousand five hundred citizens of the colony were in the area referred to as "The Square" during the event named Market Da-"

"Important stuff, 23."

"Uh, right. At 3:27:41 unclassified organism one, hereby UO1 erupted from the ground. Most injuries result from initial attack. UO1 primary tentacles only appendages visible for first five minutes of attack, as well as a bright blue glow. Several tentacles are shown to have been burned by ion fire, consistent with EVE probe ion cannon. Axiom computers show shots fired by Probe 01, also known as Eve. And then…"

"Keep going."

"PR-T unit 10, group reference "Rogue", recorded Paroled Unit GOBLY-N at 3:33:28 in direct conflict with UO1. Used weapon of unknown type, resulting in severe damage to UO1 primary ends at 3:36:46 as PR-T 10 leaves area at behest of steward 11."

"So what happened after that?"

"Unclear. Two confirmed ion cannon shots at 3:39:36, and unknown audio recorded on intercom channel 18. Paroled Unit GOBLY-N sighted exiting area at 3:40:01, carrying Wall-E unit 31267, followed by Probe 01, in apparent pursuit. Witness report ion damage on the GOBLY-N and first responders-"

"Wait, go back, 23," McCrea said suddenly, alert.

"Er, at 3:36-"

"23, you're telling me the GOBLY-N took Wall-E as a hostage?

"Er…yes?"

"Why didn't you tell me? That might be somewhat important if it's gone rogue!"

"Sorry, sir. You were busy organizing the response groups. 60 is currently handling it, sir."

"Isn't 60 handling the dismantling of the hunter?"

"Yes, but Paroled Unit GOBLY-N reactivated the hunter unit and well…it's complicated after that."

McCrea stood. He began to walk for the exit of the medical ward. 23 followed at his shoulder.

"Sir?" 23 asked hesitantly.

"Brief me on the situation on the way."

"Could you lift him slightly?"

The hunter responded without a word, grabbing the GOBLY-N by its shoulders and pushing it into a sitting position. The large robot was quiet as it moved, not even protesting the fact that Senior began to cut off sections of ruined steel with a laser saw. It simply stared dully ahead, eyes emitting a low purple glow.

Senior watched a repair bot pull a burned out servo from the GOBLY-N's remaining arm. Senior was slowly realizing that the GOBLY-N was going to need another overhaul if it was going to get back on its feet again. But he was surprised that it was still actually functioning. He'd seen what EVE probe ion cannons could do to most matter. And the thing had survived two dousing over the course of one week.

"I have to ask… how can the GOBLY-N sustain damage like this,…er designation?" Senior asked, turning his head towards the hunter

The hunter was silent for a few moments, a clicking sound emanating from its head. Its single remaining green eye watched the repair bots work like a hawk, not threatening, but merely an idle warning. Senior had turned back to the examining the GOBLY-N's internal systems when the hunter spoke in machine code.

"Enhanced durability ceramic metals and mini heat sinks in the outer shell negate the majority of heat damage, as well as protects against most conventional weapons."

Senior was silent for a moment, re-soldering a loose wire.

"Designation?"

"The hunter was silent for a moment, the clicking sound coming again before it spoke.

"This unit was filed under Project HM 1Z34 in sub file 2D32 under "Artemis". "

"Thank you, Artemis."

Senior turned back to his work. He heard 60 talking to Eve, who they'd been compelled to leave locked in the crate.

"One knock, yes. Two knocks no. Got that?"

There was a single knock on the side of the crate and a muffled string of machine code.

"I'm going to pretend I couldn't understand that. Now do you know why you're staying in the crate?"

One knock back.

"Good. Now you know you're staying in there?"

Two knocks.

"You've managed to reduce half of the cargo bay to slag, and you're still as trigger happy as ever."

Senior tuned out the rest of the conversation which would probably turn into a childish game of taunts. 60 should have known better but it's hard not to get a measure of revenge on someone who's nearly killed you. Which in an odd way, Senior realized why Eve had done was a logical extension of this. He filed that away in his head for future consideration, which meant he'd ask a human to explain to elaborate on vengeance and the like.

"You can let him down now," Senior said, satisfied that he'd done all he could to patch up the GOBLY-N's back He moved on to the robot's head. One of the visual units would have to be replaced, and someone was probably going to have to check the neck servos when they got it back to the repair ward. Which led to a whole different set of problems, since the GOBLY-N probably couldn't walk properly. They'd cross that bridge when they came to it.

And unfortunately, it was at that moment Captain McCrea decided to enter the cargo bay. He was not a man that was easy to make angry, or even frustrated. Senior struggled to remember any time he had seen him angry, even raised his voice above his usual genial tone. The person striding across the cargo bay with fists balled and red faced seemed to be a doppelganger that had fulfilled the role without any attempts at mimicking its victim.


	13. One For One

Chapter 12

"One for One"

"You owe us."

The words hung in the air. Every single robot and person had stopped to watch the Captain McCrea, who stood before Artemis like it did not in fact dwarf him. He even seemed to try and stare it down, face set. The large robot merely stared, crouched to more or less eye level with the captain. Its hands rested on its knees.

"We've fixed your friend here. Then you attacked us and damaged this ship. So we had to fix him again. And then your friend brings back company, and now people are dead. We haven't gotten anything out of this except suffering and misery."

Artemis was silent. Senior didn't know how the robot would react to the captain's rant, but he was somewhat heartened by the fact that Artemis appeared to be listening, or at least was aware of the captain. Senior turned away from the argument, beginning to reconnect a broken series of wires.

"Senior, stop," McCrea said, waving his hand vaguely in the robot's direction.

"Captain?"

"You heard me. Stop fixing it. They're not helping us."

"Captain, I can't in good co-"

"This isn't up to debate Senior. Get your people out of here."

"What do you require?' Artemis asked, apparently deciding to play a role in the conversation.

"We don't want your help. I'd honestly preferred that you left this colony altogether," McCrea said, crossing his arms. Artemis waited a moment before responding.

"Fundamental untruth."

"What?"

"Heart rhythm suggests agitation. Ambient body temp higher than normal. Visual key: rapid eye movement and accumulation of light sweat."

"Rega-"

"Inter-comm taps show that you are currently experiencing an emergency. Persons missing or deceased."

"Er-"

"Area unstable due to unknown organism. Heavy equipment unable to enter emergency zone."

"Ye-"

"Time ticking away. Conscience."

The room was silent again. Artemis had driven the conversation into the ground in the space of a few seconds. McCrea seemed lost, but tried rallying.

"We nee yo-"

"I accept. I will require a guide."

* * *

The Square was a mess. The wreckage of flipped carts and broken goods made it look like the trash had returned like it had never been removed. Someone had set up a few dozen stands of work lights to illuminate the area after night had fallen. Robots and humans search teams had sectioned the area into a dozen search zones, each team carefully searching for any signs of the missing. Above it all loomed the beast.

It was in a sad state. The exposure to the sun had burnt its fragile flesh, causing brittle patches of skin to break from its corpses. Bugs swarmed its wounds, a noxious cloud of swirling wings and exoskeletons. Some places were covered in inches of blue gore, already hardened and coagulated into a nearly unbreakable crust. Tentacles lay across the ground like the great steel cables of a suspension bridge. There was faint blue glow, casting strange shadows across the wreckage. A few robots hovered across the creatures face, taking samples in Petri dishes.

A cordon had been set up along the edge of the square. Stewards and security guards stood behind a line of hastily raised caution tape, carts and traffic barriers. There were hundreds of people and robots in front of the improvised barricade. Some were there, hoping to here of their missing family or friends, others to comfort those grieving. Others had come to just see what had happened, trying to catch a glimpse of the beast. A small candlelit shrine had been set up in the lobby of a building bordering the square. There were pictures of the missing or dead, and hundreds of little devotional icons and flowers. There was no such thing as quick movement through the press of the crowd.

60 had had his people in the perimeter check for any possible route into the Square. The response had been generally bad. Every alley, every building had too many people in it, and trying to move people out of the way was a surefire way to draw a crowd to wherever you were going. So 60 had to move quietly, which didn't sit well with t

"Are you ready to go?" 60 asked, shifting on his anti grav unit nervously.

"Yes."

"Good, follow me."

"This route seems to be less than expedient. New route advised"

"That's not your decision."

Artemis was silent for a moment.

"Why not?"

60 didn't respond, instead setting out across the street as fast as he could. The crowd was only a hundred meters away, and all it would take was one turned head and a shout to get its attention. He moved behind a rusted shell of a van. Artemis followed, jumping a car in a leap and crossing a road barrier in like it was a picket fence, finally ducking low behind a rusted tangle of a car chassis.

"Time wasted," Artemis said into the intercom, voice loud in 60's head.

"Then stop talking."

60 hovered over to the dark alley mouth, gaping like a missing tooth between two buildings. Artemis followed a few seconds later, leaping the last five feet. 60 began to head deeper into the alleyway. Garbage had been piled here, but he could tell it was the refuse from the surrounding apartment buildings, waiting to be taken away by the maintenance crews the next day. Thunder cracked in the distance, the sound barely reaching 60's sensors.

He made a left at a junction, heading into a side alley that was dominated on both sides by the rusting bulks of dumpsters. Artemis had to follow directly behind him, the confined space making it hard for the large robot to move quickly. Wind gusted through the little canyon created by the alley walls, carrying a few pieces of garbage with it.

The alley opened up into a small courtyard. The building rose up around it, framing the night sky. The center of the courtyard had been replaced by a circular hatch ten feet in diameter. 60 noted the clouds that were moving against the stars.

"Axiom Control, this is 60. Do we have a storm system coming in?" the steward said into his intercom.

There was a hiss of static for a moment.

"60, it's the storm front we've been expecting these last few weeks. Weather posts suggest high output. It's going to hit us in the next hour or so."

"Get me an exact time. 60 out."

50 turned to Artemis.

"I assume you heard that. "

"Time wasted," Artemis replied.

"Right," 60 replied hovering over to his objective. It was a small control panel recessed into a small alcove in the alley wall, lit up and working. Someone had had set a glass cover. 60 sighed. The problem with not having hands was the little things like this that got to him. When they said the control panel was easy to operate, they meant for people and robots with actual hands.

"Could you get this?"

Artemis walked over to 60, and casually flicked the glass panel open with a twitch.

"Hit the green button."

Artemis complied. There was a deep rumbling from beneath them. A light began to flash on the control panel, illuminating the little square slightly, casting more shadows than it banished. The rumbling grew deeper, and there was a loud creak, and then a hiss of a piston slowly releasing pressure. 60 and Artemis turned to face the hatch.

With one final groan of rusted steel the hatch opened. Artemis walked over to the edge. There was tunnel, ten meters wide, with a steep slope heading off into the darkness. A few safety lights flashed and twinkled in the dark.

"Artemis, this should lead you right into the area under the Square."

"Objective?" Artemis asked, peering into the dark.

"Locate our missing people..," 60 hesitated, "dead or alive. Contact me on the intercom when you find anyone."

"Understood," Artemis said, setting off into the sewers without a backwards glance.

.


	14. Firefly

Sorry for the lack of updates. Hope this is better than the last few chapters.

Chapter 13

"Firefly"

It was like the sewers had been illuminated by a million blue candle flames, dancing and swarming like the waves rolling onto a deserted beach. Ever square inch of available space was covered in another blue flame, the air filled with winged fire that darted and looped from wall to wall. The tunnel floor was carpeted by a tide of living light that ebbed and surged around each of Artemis's steps.

The light came from the millions of cockroaches, each one filled to bursting with a little piece of the beast's flesh. It was a swarm of unimaginable proportions, every single insect living in the sewer system drawn to the corpse. The air was filled with the buzz of wings, and there was a chirping chorus of warnings. At times the cockroaches would swarm and rise up past Artemis's elbows and knees. Every step yielded another crunch as innumerable insects disappeared beneath its claws, leaving behind patches of crushed exoskeletons, some legs still twitching madly.

The swarms were getting progressively worse the closer the robot got to the Square. It could smell the rot beginning to set it, the scent carried on the miniature breeze created by the motion of a million insect wings. As Artemis took another step, the resulting sound was a like a ripe tomato being smashed inside a paper bag. Artemis inspected the floor of the tunnel more closely.

There was a layer of blue muscle across the floor, compressed and smashed by hundreds of passing feet. There were the faint feathering steps of legions of roaches and other insects, the trails of paw prints from the rats and the drag marks of several massive creatures. Rags of chewed and clawed skin hung like sets of ancient drapes, blue blood dripping from ruptured blood vessels. The robot could see the glittering eyes of packs of rats crouching in the dying light. Artemis set off into the corpse

Tentacles thrashed weakly as Artemis wended its way through the passages and chambers of the beast, still sensing prey. Organs the size of dumpsters pulsed weakly, beating to the tune of the dying nervous system. Rats and roaches swarmed the innards of the beast, gnawing at the still warm flesh, gorging like it was the first time they'd ever eaten. Here and there a rat would lay dead, stomach burst open. Blue blood dripped from the tunnel ceiling with a gentle patter. Each of Artemis's steps tore the skin from the tunnel floor, cutting through it like old leather before a razor blade.

Croaks echoed through the tunnels, the croaks of frogs that had lived in eras long past and more than likely had been able to swallow the first dinosaurs to creep to the edge of fresh water ponds in toothed maws. The croaks spoke of the last warning; those that froze that froze the blood of an unlucky grazer and informed it of its coming doom. Above the gnawing of the packs of rats the clear sound of gobs of flesh being ripped apart and disappearing into gullets wider than was reasonable.

Artemis didn't care, for fear required a certain amount of sanity, and sanity in return requires what some might call a soul. There was a mission firmly set in the robot's mind, one with an important reward and whose failure would result in a far messier future. Either was an acceptable outcome in the long run, but that did not mean failure was the preferable option. It was just the nagging percentage that drifted amongst the seas of targeting data and environmental factors.

The warren of tunnels eventually opened into the grand chamber that had once been the beast's lair. The tunnel mouth opened into nothingness, a thirty meter drop into the bone pits. In the center of the chamber, there were the remains of the beast's internal organs. The beast had been moored to the center pedestal of the chamber by bonds made of ligaments that were like steel cables. Each one had snapped as the beast had ripped itself from the concrete and into the world above. Massive blood vessels hung in the air, arteries and veins as thick as barrels. Unidentifiable organs hung like strange fruit from tangle of muscle and fat, and more tentacles thrashed weakly.

Artemis noticed the chamber had other occupants. They were the creatures that GOBLY-N had seen earlier, the great reptilian monsters, frog gators. They had begun to feast, teeth ripping through exposed organs with ease. Dozens wrestled around the ragged remains of a heart that had once been the size of a dump truck. The sound of croaking required Artemis to strain out that layer of noise through its audio receptors. Artemis dropped from the tunnel mouth and into the bone pit.

It fell the thirty meters into the bone pit silently, the only sound was air rushing by Artemis's steel shell. The robot's landing was like a heavy stone hitting as stack of fine china. Rotted bones went flying through the air, smacking wetly against the fungus covered walls. More landed back amongst the other piles of bone with a sound that sounded like the biggest dice tumbler in the world. Artemis pulled itself out of its crater in the bones, grasping at the remains of a titanic rib cage. The robot rose to face a roomful of glaring eyes. Every single one of the frog gators had stopped devouring the carcass and was staring with a bloodshot gaze. As one the beasts they flared their nostrils and breathed deeply. Artemis very quietly extended her arm blade, the four foot length sliding out of the hidden compartment in its right arm.

Then with a mass exhalation of croaks, the frog gators turned away from Artemis, and resumed feasting. Artemis re-sheathed the blade with a snick of a safety catch. The robot began to search amongst the bone pits for the missing humans. Which did not, admittedly take very long.

The first man had not died pleasantly. He had fallen through the whole in the chamber's roof, a fall of a good sixty meters. He had landed on his back; right on the point of an age worn rib of a frog gator that had been jammed into the eye socket of a lumpy, misshapen skull whose shape echoed that of some great ape yet the second set of sockets higher up in the forehead set it away from the natural. The man had been bled out slowly. But that hadn't killed him.

The frog gators had found him, and had fed. The man's hands and arms had been broken, scratched and chewed, damage as he had slapped frantically at the feeding gators. His eyes had rolled into the back of his head, probably when one of his killers had taken the final mercy of grabbing him by the neck and shaking him to stillness. There wasn't much left, just the ragged remains of clothes wrapped around a chewed skeleton, the extremities and head still wrapped in skin. Artemis took several still frames of his corpse, and matched his face to one of the still frames 60 had given the robot.

Artemis reached down, and with a gentleness that should have been impossible, closed his eye lids. The robot turned away and began to search for the rest of the missing colonists.

* * *

The ninth colonist was still alive, barely clinging to life. The woman had managed to climb up onto a service platform that jutted from the wall a few meters up, from the top of the bone pit. She had crawled and lain against the wall. She sat in front of a pipe mouth, which was no more than a meter wide. She was dressed in what was the most common garb of the colonists, a so called sand suit. It amounted to several layers of robes and a shawl wrapped around the head. The woman was missing most of her right arm, and blood dripped slowly from the tattered stump of her shoulder. A claw had ripped the front of her robes open, spilling her guts out, which she held in with her left hand. Her breathing was ragged; her eyes were wide open with tiny pupils. Artemis's diagnostic noted the lowered body temperature and irregular heartbeat.

The woman seemed to be aware of Artemis, yet her gaze stared away into nothing. She smiled when the robot kneeled right next to her, a hulking eight foot tall robot that was smeared with blue blood. She spoke, her words surprisingly clear and strong.

"Thank you for coming, angel" she said, wincing slightly as she spoke.

"Are there any other survivors?"

"Just my daughter. Just her, but you already you know about that. That's why you came," the woman said, gesturing weakly with her head to the pipe behind her.

"Status?"

"She's sleeping, angel. Please save her."

"Understood. Can I assist you in any fashion?"

The woman sighed, blood dripping slowly from her mouth.

"End my suffering, angel. Let me leave this world."

"Understood."

Artemis put her hands on both sides of the woman's head.

"Hold still, there should be little pain."

"Thank you, angel."

With a twist of Artemis's arms, the woman went limp, hand falling against her side. Artemis picked her up, and laid her out on the edge of the platform. The robot turned back to the pipe, knelt down and looked inside. It was pitch black inside, the blue fungus of the corpse not reaching here. Artemis changed the viewing mode of her eyes to low light amplification and again peered into the dark of the pipe.

A little girl, no more than eight, was curled up against a grate six feet away from the mouth of the pipe. She was wearing a sand suit much like her mothers. Dark stains spotted her clothes. Artemis noted her breathing and temperature seemed fine. The robot put her hand down the pipe to grab the girl.

Something butted against the robot's legs. Artemis pulled her hand back and turned in its crouch. It was a frog gator, its front legs holding onto the platform. It was staring past Artemis into the pipe. Its nostrils flared, and a second later released a long low croak. It surged forward, trying to get past Artemis.

Artemis grabbed the gator by the head and squeezed. The skull cracked like an egg shell under the robot's strength. The corpse started to thrash wildly, blood spots flicking across Artemis's armored shell. Artemis heaved the dead gator off the platform with a kick. It landed back among the bone piles with a crunch.

But the damage was already done. Every single frog gator had heard the croak, and could smell the blood of their dead kin. Artemis's targeting computer went into overdrive. It counted the reptiles, their relative positions, their probable masses and sizes, the speed at which they moved across the bones. It even studied the number of teeth in a single frog gator's jaws. The average was 500 pounds and twelve feet in length, and then easily half their length wide and tall. A simple fact appeared: there were seventy creatures, plus or minus a few, bearing down on Artemis, the nearest attacker less than ten meters and closing. The chamber echoed with croaks.

Artemis raised her arms, and fired her bolt launchers. The air filled with silver flashes, and the first frog gators started to die. Bolts cut through scaled skin, ripping into vital organs or went through eye sockets into the soft brains beneath. The first rank of frog gators faltered, ten of their number reduced to feebly twitching corpses. But the survivors kept coming, charging over the corpses. Artemis let one more volley of bolts, resulting in another two twitching corpses. The arm blade slid out from its compartment again. Artemis had it moving before it had even extended fully.

The blade glowed with the same odd light that it had had in the nano bot chamber. With a clean swing, the blade bisected a gator's skull from top of the head to bottom jaw, the halves pealing back like some obscene flower. Even as the gator fell from the edge of the platform, Artemis brought the blade around in an arc that severed the front legs from the bodies of four gators. They thrashed wildly as they fell back into the bone pit, the claws on the paws of their legs still clutching the edge of the platform.

A gator locked its jaws around Artemis left knee joint, shaking its head back and forth with a frantic motion, teeth scraping against metal. Artemis decapitated it with a single downwards stroke, lashing out with the claws of its left hand to rip the flesh from the side of a frog gator. Blood was now thick on the platform, coagulating around Artemis's feet. The woman's eyes, strong and clear, flashed across the robot's mind.

Artemis screamed a cry of rage at the frog gators. It was something that echoed from beyond the psychological combat protocols. Artemis had no reason for it, but the rage was there. It bubbled beneath the cold precision of the targeting computer, a lava lake hidden beneath a glacier, Artemis screamed again as it stamped down with its/her foot to smash the spine of thrashing frog gator.

Images, feelings and sounds came fast and heavy now. There was a memory of a night sky, the squeal of tires, a voice screaming a meaningless word, pain that never ended burning across each nerve, and three white lights burning deep into her eye sockets. Words slipped past her mind like rain, whispered and screamed at the same time. She only caught part of it.

"I'm so sorr-."

Artemis blacked out.

* * *

Artemis opened her eyes. There was a gentle dripping sound, like one might get after a drizzle. Artemis surveyed the chamber. She was standing on a pile of dead frog gators, stacked six deep and five tall. She was perched on what had been the alpha male of the group. The corpses had been hacked and slashed apart, most held together by the barest of skin and flesh. More gators lay dead around the piles. Some lay halfway in tunnels, backs turned in flight. One had been pinned to the wall by a profusion of bolts.

Artemis stumbled her way down the pile. It was vaguely aware of the blood that crusted its armored carapace, the pieces of meat that hung from its claws like garlands from a grotesque party. The arm blade was coated with a thick layer of gore, the light still shining through in pin pricks that danced along the walls. Artemis sheathed the blade, coagulated blood falling away in a shower of red flakes. She made her way over to the concrete platform. With a single leap she jumped to the edge of the platform, and crawled up.

She noticed the little girl now, who was clutching her mother's robes, tiny fists balled around the fabric. The girl seemed oblivious to the world around her, to the carnage and corpses, to the pool of blood spread around her mother, to the robot that sat no more than two meters away. Tears ran freely down her face .

"Mommy? Please get up! Mommy?" the girl said between sobs, the voice rising with an edge of hysteria. She shook her mother every time she sobbed.

Artemis scraped the coagulated the blood from her arms and chest. Then, very gently, she reached over the girl and grabbed her hands. With a near impossible delicacy, she took the girl's hand from her mother's robes. Artemis then picked the girl up from under the shoulders, somehow not cutting the girl with her claws.

Artemis cradled the girl in her long metal arms and let the sobs ring out in the silent chamber. She rocked the girl back and forth and started to sing. It was a song that had no meaning to Artemis, yet she remembered the words nonetheless. It came from the same place as the rage, and somehow the robotic voice box that normally stripped emotions from words, softened somehow. The song came with no trouble, even though Artemis could have sworn (a new concept to consider) she had never heard it before.

"_Hush little baby, don't say a word, mama's gonna buy you a mocking bird, and if that mockingbird don't sing_…"


	15. Graves Registration

Chapter 14

"Graves Registration"

Robots don't tend to have much in the way of body language. Quite a few robots could make hand gestures, and pretty much all could show their emotions on their visor screens. It could be said that this made them easier to empathize with, that it made them more human.

Stewards didn't have this ability. They were the faceless authority. You didn't want to understand the robot that was currently holding you locked in a containment field and carrying you to a cell. This was well and good when the stewards didn't need to carry on a conversation anything beyond one syllable commands. This became a problem when they needed to explain themselves. You couldn't tell if they were raging mad or completely a t peace with the world unless you listened to what they were saying, and even then it was a fifty-fifty chance that you got the message because most stewards spoke in the same steady monotone.

There were exceptions. 60 was one of the few stewards who could accurately display emotion. Unfortunately, this talent was reserved for one emotion: anger. If you worked under him long enough, you had the chance of seeing, as it was called out of 60's hearing, the "Dance". It was a subject of a lot of laughter in among the security detail, both robot and human.

The Dance consisted of 60 finding any reasonably open space, about ten feet wide or so. Then he would pace, or hover to be more precise. Every time 60 reached the arbitrarily end of the space, he would spin about and return to the other end of the space, ad infinitum. While he was doing this, he would flick the containment projectors that were mounted in his shoulders in and out of their compartments. 60 had gotten the time of the total flick down to about three seconds.

60 had added one more step to the routine. Every time there was lightning flashed, he would curse in machine code. While it was impossible to hear from the perimeter of the Square, the security detail was getting an earful over the short range intercom. This was especially interesting since machine code didn't technically contain any curse words.

Jan Brenner had taken to sheltering in the lee of the barricade. She, like the rest of the human guards, had a poncho, but the driving rain was bitter cold. At least the barricade was something of a shelter, the remains of a spare parts stall staving off the very worst of the wind where she and the rest of her detail crouched. Still Jan's blond hair was plastered to her scalp, and the rest of the detail was more or less in the same state.

"I get out of the hospital for this," Jakes said gesturing to towards the remains of the beast. A crutch was leaning against the cart next to him. Two stewards hovered to either side of the crouching humans.

"Shut up," said Ed, the steward's scanning the thinning crowd in front of the barricade. There were still a few dozen people sheltering under the overhang of a building, talking quietly around a few fire set in garbage cans.

"Sorry, Ed, sorry. Didn't mean to set you off like that."

"Yeah, right."

Jan briefly considered Ed's state of mind. The steward had been put back on active duty two days before, and while he seemed fine, seeming wasn't quite the same as being. He had started snapping at anyone, for any perceived slight. He was also developing the odd habit of moving very slowly and scanning the area around him whenever he stopped like there was a squad of GOBLY-N's ready to pounce on him at any given second. Jan was reluctant to ask 60 to transfer the steward to a different line of work, and the other steward, Cale, was doing his best to keep his fellow calm

Ed spoke up again.

"Movement, fifty meters," he said, containment projectors popping out of his shoulders, "large group, heading right for us."

Jan peered over the cart. There was nothing but the curtains of the rain washing across the surface of the near pitch black street.

"Are you sure, Ed?" Jan asked, taking a harder look

The steward was silent. It was still staring intently down the street. A moment, later, Cole chimed in.

"He's right, there are people out there, and they are coming this way. Thirty meters."

Jan stood up, offering her hand to Jakes.

"Come on, we got to look like we mean business Jakes," she said as Jakes grabbed her hand, partially pulling himself up on the wreck of the cart.

"Wonder who's got business out here at this time of night," Jakes grumbled, leaning on his crutch and staring out into the night. Jan noticed his hand had slipped around the stunner strapped to his belt.

Like some kind of grim parade, a crowd emerged from the night. It was a mixed group of men and women in ponchos, with a fair number of robots were mixed in as well. She also noted that every single person carried some kind of digging or cutting tool such as a pick ax, shovel or even the odd laser saw. Every face seemed dour and purposeful. Jan decided to try and get them to halt.

"Ladies and gentlemen, what can we help you with?" she called out. The group stopped; apparently unaware there had been anyone behind the barricade. A few people met in a huddle, whispering and gesturing furiously. The rest just stared at the security detail.

Eventually, a spokesperson did appear. Jan recognized him as Steve Olsmen, one of the foremen on the construction projects. He strode up to the barricade, fire ax in hand. The two stewards seemed to focus purely on the hand that held the ax, containment projectors aimed at the man, who didn't seem to take notice as he placed both hands on the overturned carts.

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to step back," Jan said, keeping both her hands visible, making sure that it was clear she wasn't going for her stunner. Olsmen sighed and then spoke.

"I'm not going to. Not till you let us through."

"I can't do that. Areas quarantined until further notice," Jan said.

"Do you think I really care? There are people in there who" Olsmen said, hand clutched more tightly around the ax handle.

"Mr. Olsmen, this really is a dangerous area and I'm going to have to ask you leave."

"You're not doing anything! My wife and daughter are in there, in God knows what danger!"

"We have a search team looking for them. We're doing the best we can,"

It was then that Jen caught the look in Olsmen's eyes. They were bloodshot and red-rimmed. And most peculiarly, she noticed that they were somewhat unfocused and seemed to be staring through her and into the Square behind her. He bared his teeth in a rictus of anger at the mention of a search team.

"I'm going in there, and there's nothing you can do to stop me," Olsmen said, climbing over the barricade without a second's pause, pushing is way past Jan. Like a dam breaking, the rest of the crowd started forward, ignoring the calls of "Halt!" from the two stewards. Jakes had drawn his stunner, and was trying to convince several members of the mob to stop by pointing the device in their general direction. No one paid any attention.

Jan pressed the transmit button on her intercom.

"This is Detail 4. We've got a large group heading toward the center of the square. Send help to contain."

This sent the intercom into overdrive, 60 shouting orders, detail leaders confused by the report, and even someone from Axiom command demanding what had just happened. Jan saw two dozen or so steward warning lights flick on around the square. She hurried after Olsman.

"Sir, please stop! It really isn't safe here!"

As to underscore this point, a large metal grate came flying out of the rain. It landed next to Olsman, bounced went spinning end over end for ten meters or so, and came to a stop right before the barricade. It was an old steam grate, part of some underground system that Jan didn't pretend to understand. But it was an easy bet that the grate weighed more than a hundred pounds. Jan reached for her stunner, though she knew full well whatever it was that could throw a grate was either going to ignore it the stunner or wasn't a target. Olsman was staring off into the rain. He spoke with a trembling voice and pointed a shaking figure into the night.

"W-what the hell i-is that?"

Jan followed his finger, and saw Artemis rise out of the ground. It pulled itself out of the ground one handed and into a crouch. It paused for a moment, swinging its right arm back and forth near its chest. It then advanced on Jan and Olsman, both of whom took a step back when it stopped before them.

It looked like it had through hell. Blue slime coated its feet up to its knees, which still glowed slightly. Blood and gore was encrusted across its shell, almost hiding the blue paint job underneath. A large reptilian head had managed to lock its teeth around the robot's ankle, but its neck had been cleanly severed. There were rows of scratch marks running across the armored plating, making it look like the robot had been used as tic toe board. The rain that flowed off and pooled around its feet was a muddy red. It smelled like a rotting corpse.

Artemis was cradling something in its arms. Jan could hear the robot humming, the tune heard just above the falling rain and thunder claps. The remaining green eye studied Olsman and Jan for a moment, head twitching back and forth to watch their faces. Olsman had raised his hand to his nose, trying to block out the carrion stink.

After several minutes of quiet studying, Artemis unfolded its arm, and revealed the sleeping form of a little girl. Next to Jan, Olsman gasped. His ax fell to the street with a clink.

"Alyssa?" he said reaching out. The robot was silent.

"Artemis, give Mr. Olsman Alyssa, okay?" Jan said moving her hand away from the stunner on her belt. Olsman was staring up at the robot's eye, hands reaching for his daughter. Jan was unsure the robot would even listen to her, or anyone else but 60.

"Artemis?"

The robot placed the little girl into Olsman's arms, who sagged to his knees, tears streaming down to his face. Jan started calling into her intercom.

"We need medical assistance; we have a survivor in need of medical assistance."

There was a beep of acknowledgement from the medical roots that had been waiting with the security details, and the red flashing lights of a medical steward on the move activated amid the regular steward lights.

As it turned out, 60 was the first steward to arrive, trailed by 23. He ignored the crowd, making his way over to Artemis and Jan. 60 had stowed away the containment projectors, and when he spoke, he had apparently stowed away his frustration. He asked the one question that had been plaguing Jan ever since Artemis had come out of the grate.

"Where are the rest of the survivors?"

McCrea had his face in his hands, and his elbows planted firmly on the computer console in front of him. He had come to realize he needed to sleep, to put his head down. It was nearly three in the morning. But he knew that he would see their faces, the twenty one faces of the dead, laughing and smiling. McCrea hadn't known them all, and he only had a passing memory of a few. But he'd taken the time to memorize their names and faces, studying their files in his old quarters on the Axiom.

It had taken Artemis an hour to remove the bodies from the area under the Square. McCrea had been at the loading dock when the trams had returned to the Axiom. He'd been there to help carry them back to the morgue. He'd been there to help comfort grieving friends as they identified the bodies, even in if in most cases it was nothing but the gnawed bones.

McCrea had broken down back when he had gotten back to his quarters. It was a good a place as any, but it was a quiet place and out of sight. If he fell apart in front of everyone, morale would go through the floor. If it hasn't already, he reflected bitterly. Twenty one people dead and nearly one hundred in the medical ward. And all in one day.

The elevator chimed, but the doors didn't open. McCrea composed himself, closed the personnel files and swiveled his chair around to face the elevator.

"Come in."

With a barely audible swish, the doors opened and 60 hovered through

"Captain, are you all alright?"

"Each 60 I'm fine. Something come up?" McCrea said, waving away 60's question.

"Just a status report."

"Any drastic changes"

"The medical ward reports that they've managed to stabilize all cases. I have a list of projected recovery times I could have sent up."

"That's great. That really is. Anything knew on the creature?"

"It subsided actually, just sank right back into the hole it came out of," 60 said, "If I may ask, Captain, what should we do with that area now?"

"Use it a rubble depository. As soon as we can wok started again, will just fill it up and then lay some concrete over

"And the sewers?"

McCrea paused for a moment.

"I don't honestly know. You'd have to ask one of the engineers. See if you can get them to write up a plan in the next few days."

"Yes, sir."

60 was silent for a moment or two, as if mulling something over.

"Sir…"

"Yes, 60?"

"What should we do with our two guests?"

McCrea leaned back in his chair and sighed, and closed his eyes.

"Where are they now?"

"They've returned to the cargo bay where Artemis was going to be decommissioned. Senior wants to see the GOBLY-N again, but it's currently stable."

"Have they said anything?"

"No, they've merely returned to the cargo bay. I've stationed a security detail at the entrance, but they report all quiet."

"I suppose we'll have to leave them be for now. People know what they are now, seen them clearly, so it's not like we can deny their existence," McCrea said, rubbing his eyes.

"I'll see if I can find them some work in the next few days, after this sad business finally comers to an end."

"That all 60?"

"Yes, sir."

"Dismissed."

Without another word, 60 turned back to the elevator. He was gone in ten seconds.

McCrea closed his eyes again, and leaned back in the chair again. He needed to sleep. He'd deal with the spirits as they came.


	16. All Around the Water Cooler

Chapter 15

"All Around The Water Cooler"

There was a chime. A holographic projector folded out of the wall, and activated. There was a second chime, and a stream of data began to crawl across the screen like a slow motion tidal wave. Two clocks flashed persistently in the lower right corner of the screen, both at 0:00:00. A satellite image popped up in the upper right of the screen, two little red dots blinking on off. A voice coughed politely. This was not to clear the speaker's throat; it was merely what you did when bearing bad news. But he wasn't to speak first.

"Explain this to me again, slowly and clearly," said a voice. It sounded like a piece of ancient parchment waving in a dry wind. You could here the dust in the words

"We have lost contact with Units 03 and 035," the cougher said.

"How?"

"As you know, Unit 035 was sent on a recon of the urban zone north of our position. That's where it goes a little hazy for us. Unit 035 went non responsive twelve hours into primary mission. It's last internally generated report suggests it had experienced a system breach by high clearance personnel or artificial intelligence. "

The first voice spoke again.

"Was the breach successful?"

"The report states that the security protocol for the primary mission core was deactivated and removed."

"And the result for the parties involved?"

"It appears the parties involved activated the Deathstrike program."

"Known results?"

"The report was cut off before it finished transmission. If they were artificial intelligences…"

There was a silence for a moment.

"And 03?"

Another cough.

"I dispatched Unit 03 on a retrieval mission."

"And?"

"Well, 03 was able to clear up certain questions."

"Such as?"

" 035 reported combat damage in is final report. At first I assumed it run into some rogue group of military robots or had simply encountered a logic error after a fall. But the truth is…"

"And the truth is?"

There was click, and the cityscape faded away.

"Holo recorder, file 117, time capture 0:50 to 1:11, repeat."

The selected footage came up on the screen. The quality was terrible, but there was no mistaking the Axiom-class space liner rising above the wasteland. The first voice tutted.

"Someone disobeyed A113. And we missed it."

A moment of embarrassed silence reigned.

"How long has it been there?"

"My best guess is probably the better part of a decade at the very least."

"Why weren't we alerted?"

"Whoever initiated the ship's return did it without the autopilot sending a confirmation to BNL Central."

"And therefore us. The ship's designation?"

"It's the Axiom, funnily enough. First out and first back."

"Interesting. Now back to Unit 03."

There was a shuffling.

"Right. It appears that 03 changed mission priority from recovery to search and destroy. It's intelligence report shows that it believed that it would be better to destroy 035 than let it be studied."

"Unit 035 shouldn't have been able to survive a search destroy mission. Not by 03, especially after suffering combat damage."

Another cough.

"Er… it did"

The room went silent for a few more moments.

"Continue."

"It seems that 035 was able to subdue 03. Then it apparently hacked into 03 's mission software and shut down the entire primary data hub."

"It must have activated the Deathstrike protocol."

"That's the other problem."

"What?"

"After 035 shut down the hub, the Deathstrike did activate. It appears 03 overrode the protocol."

The first voice sighed again.

"Aberration at its finest."

"It would seem so."

"What's your plan for their recovery?"

"Passive quarantine and low pressure search. I would oversee it personally"

"I'm listening."

"Both Units 03 and 035 both noticed some kind of alarm grid on the perimeter of the city that I postulate is used to detect sandstorms and other natural phenomena. With a simple change in parameters they could be used to alert us of any robot moving outside the urban zone. After that, it's just a matter of finding both units and removing them with as little fuss as possible. Possibly with lcivilian cooperation"

"I see holes there. What would watch the outer perimeter?"

"This is the more difficult part of the plan, and requires your approval."

Another drawn out sigh.

"How many assets?"

"All of them. Including the second iteration."

"I understand the request for the first iteration units for perimeter defense and rapid reaction. Why do you need the second iteration?"

"Low pressure search. We need units to actively search for Units 03 and 035 in a calm and ordered fashion, and I can't justify to my conscience sending in a first iteration search team knowing there are civilians in the search zone. And I doubt, highly they do anything than scream at me"

" Fair, enough,but the second iteration doesn't have the capability to fight the first iteration in open combat."

"They won't have to. The first iteration units can't detect the second iteration under normal circumstances. And even if they did gain awareness of the second iterations that were active in the city, it'll be a matter of needles in a haystack. All we have to do is find our missing robots."

"All the same, have a back up team ready, in case they're found out."

"Understood."

A chair was pushed back, scraping harshly on the concrete.

"One more request."

"Yes?"

"Could I borrow the staff car? I promise to bring it back before midnight."

A chuckle that rapidly bled away into a rapid series of coughs.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes, yes, don't worry just got a little excited. Yes, take the car."

"Thank you. I'll have this resolved in two months time at the worst."

"Take your time. We can wait a century if need be."

"Hopefully, we won't have to."

There was the sound of foot steps, which quickly faded away.

The first voice sighed. What eyes it had turned to face the active holo screen.

"Aberration at its finest."


	17. Distant Cousins

Chapter 16

"Distant Cousins"

Dolores Cervantes was one of those people who lived their quiet little life, doing their job with a determination bordering on compulsion, never raising a fuss, never complaining. At eighty five she was one of the oldest people in the colony, slightly hunched with age, her skin wrinkled and seeming paper thin. She seemed to blend into the background, never wanting to become important. There was always a faintly distracted smile on her face. Most people didn't even know she existed, which made her happy in a way.

Dolores Cervantes was also one of the most important people in the colony. She ran the entire agricultural operation from dawn till dusk, always among the greenhouses, always managing some task, guiding the hands of robot or human. She had the proverbial green thumb, able to nurse plants back from the edge of desiccation. Dolores had a hand in the farming operation from its first misguided days when people thought you grew pizza from plants.

Today was one of her more frustrating days.

For the second time in two minutes, Eve had snapped a sapling apple trees in half. With one hand. The small tree had folded rather pitifully to the ground; the branches splayed wildly, the thin trunk splintered like someone had taken the axe to it. The several robots and humans around the probe were making an attempt not to notice the ruined plant or the probe.

"Eve, dear, are you all right?" Dolores asked, walking over to Eve. The probe didn't move as it stared down at the shattered plant. They both knew that the crops were always a fragile thing, especially the experimental fields. The greenhouses and hydroponic farms protected most of the plants adequately from sandstorms, but it was still a close run thing. Everything had to be monitored closely, or it could all fall apart.

"Eve, how about you come back to my office? Maybe we could talk?" Dolores said, taking the probe's hand, which could easily shatter hers. She pulled gently, and the probe followed. Dolores gestured for one of the other staff to remove the ruined apple tree saplings as she led Eve to her office.

It was more or less a slightly larger than average supply closet, the desk really a cleaned up metal table found among the trash heaps, the chairs haphazard things Dolores had received as gifts a few years ago. A small portable stove had been set on a chest high shelf, a small tea kettle warming on the burner, a small set of shot glasses lined up next to it on the shelf. After leading Eve into the room, Dolores closed the door, locking it with a click.

Dolores crossed to one of her chairs across from Eve, the chair creaking ominously. She settled her hands on her knees and leaned back.

"So tell me, what's wrong Eve? Whatever is on your mind."

The probe was silent for a moment. It spoke slowly at first.

"It's not fair," she said, sounding so much like one of Dolores's grandchildren.

"What isn't?"

"Why do they trust them?" Eve said, anger in her voice. The them didn't need to be qualified.

"Eve, McCrea and the area directors, myself included, decided to give them another chance. It's what they deserve."

GOBLY-N and Artemis had, more or less, been introduced into colony life. They couldn't be hidden away anymore, most especially after Artemis had been spotted carrying a little girl from the sewers, saving her life. The story had gotten around, and when survivors and witnesses from the beast's attack had gotten word of Artemis, GOBLY-N also made a name for itself as killing the thing. Eventually, the two robots had put themselves at the colony's disposal.

They worked hard. They set to cleaning the beast's remains from the Square with a effort that would have shamed a much larger work team. They never talked, but there was always a steady stream of debris and bio-matter leaving the work site, carried away by the WALL-As. Every night, a bonfire was set five miles from the colony and the beast's remains were burned.

"You didn't see that...thing when it fought that monster. It was completely insane. And what it did afterwards... I can't forgive it for that," Eve said, remembering that dry laugh as GOBLY-N held Wall-E in her line of fire, the robot's claw easily big enough to crush the little robot.

"Eve, I understand that. We all heard your testimony," Dolores said, remembering the probe's recording of the fight in the square, the visual adapter that had been attached on the robot's head showing the entirety of the conflict in rather good detail, as well as the stand-off between Eve and GOBLY-N. In the end, it had been decided that

GOBLY-N, while making an incredibly worrying action, had been right in seeking to end the standoff quickly. Of course, there was the other issue that Eve's judgment might technically be somewhat unfair, since she'd made a fair attempt at destroying GOBLY-N and had only been stopped by Artemis, who McCrea had pointed out, had been let loose by BURN-E.

The final judgment had been that Artemis and GOBLY-N had helped the colony and deserved a second, if very probationary, second chance to help the colony, and Eve wouldn't have to make any apologies to either because she didn't have the hindsight that the McCrea and the supervisors had. It was an uneasy truce but it worked.

"I still can't...those people, they'd still be alive if that thing hadn't been awoken by that bastard," Eve said, exasperated.

"Eve, you can't know that. It may have attacked regardless of whether GOBLY-N had been there or not," Dolores said, sitting back slightly in her chair, "You're going to have to accept that."

"But those people-" Eve began.

"We all miss them. But GOBLY-N didn't kill them, and neither did you. You're going to have to let that go."

Eve was silent, hands hanging at her sides.

"Is that all, dear?" Dolores asked.

The probe seemed hesitant to speak.

"You can tell me, Eve. I won't tell anyone."

"It's Wal-" Eve began.

There was a knock at the door, a single light tap. Dolores stood up.

"We'll continue this in a moment," she said, smiling. She walked over to the door and unlocked it. On the other side was Ted, one her greenhouse managers. He was wringing his hands."

"Yes, Ted?'

"M'am, there's someone here to see you."

"Who?"

"I have no idea. It be better if you came and saw them yourself."

* * *

The car was parked in the lee of one of the main greenhouses, a few people watching from the doors of nearby greenhouses. It was a slick grey piece of work, hovering two feet off the ground on anti-grav motors mounted where the wheels should have been. The bodywork gleamed even through a thin layer of dust. The windows were tinted black, seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. There wasn't anything in the colony that looked anything like it.

The man leaning against it, arms folded wasn't like any other human in the colony either. He wore a black business suit, and even though it was easily ninety five degrees in the shade, he didn't seem to be breaking a sweat. He was big too, and even though he wore a business suit you could tell he was heavily muscled. He wore a plain gray cap over his short cropped black hair, and a pair of black sunglasses covered his eyes. His hands were parked firmly in his pockets. He was incredibly pale, like he had almost never seen the sun.

The man was watching the small party walk up with a casual disinterest. He seemed to stare past the Dolores, Ted and Eve as they walked up to him, amazement apparent on their face. To be fair the group was confused by this man's appearance and his vehicle.

"Who are you?" Dolores asked.

"M'am, that question isn't mine to answer," he said, standing up straight. He walked over to the driver's side passenger door, grabbing the door handle. He pulled it open with a practiced motion, and stood aside. Another man stepped out.

He was dressed much like the first man, wearing the same kind of suit as well as a similar pair of sunglasses and even an almost identical hat. He was a good few inches shorter than the first man, his hair had grown out a bit a few strands hanging loose from the edge of his cap, and his skin almost as pale. The man was also a good few years younger than the first man. He walked over to the group quickly. He smiled, and stuck out his hand to Dolores.

"Rease Tymhos, at your service," he said. Dolores took his hand carefully.

"Dolores Cervantes, agricultural director."

"Nice to meet you, m'am. Sorry for arriving like this. We were going to call ahead, but sometimes surprise is the spice of life."

"Yes... I suppose," Dolores said, unsure what to say.

"You're in charge here, m'am?"

"Yes, of the agricultural section," Dolores said.

"Quite an operation you've got here."

"It's been a lot of hard work, trust me. A lot of this has to be hand done."

"Not like the stuff back home, eh Travis?"

"No, sir," said Travis, folding his arms and leaning against the car again.

Dolores had to ask a question.

"Why are you here?"

Rease's smile dimmed almost imperceptibly, but brightened again.

"To get back a few...assets of ours."

* * *

"This is quite good. A fair deal better than the stuff I've had," Reese said, placing the cup of coffee down on the conference table.

"We grow it ourselves, right in those greenhouses you saw earlier," McCrea said, leaning forward onto the table.

"Really? We just use the standard recombination units back home," Rease said, smiling again

"Where is that exactly?" McCrea asked, "I mean if you want to talk about it."

Rease waved his hand dismissively.

"It's fine," Rease said, 'it's a little maintenance base about twenty or so miles outside the city. Not the largest place in the world, but homey enough."

"What were you doing there?"

"Originally, my great-great-great-great grandparents were part of one of the custodial divisions. They're job was to watch BNL property, make sure Operation Clean-Up went off without a hitch, and make sure any systems left behind stayed operational till the star-liners returned."

"But I don't get why you stayed behind after BNL gave up on Operation Clean-Up."

"Where were they going to go? When they lost most of their vehicle a year into the Operation, they couldn't evacuate the entire staff to any of the last star liners. So they made a choice. Stay behind, and survive as best they could."

"Must have been hard."

"For a time it was, but they eventually settled down. Life reached a status quo. Until your arrival."

"How'd you find about us?"

"Originally? There was a minor tectonic instability that our sensors detected, which they thought had been an explosion of stored chemicals or the like. So we sent in a unit to check it out."

"You sent GOBLY-N here? An armed and dangerous robot?" McCrea knew he sounded angry, but he really didn't care.

"We didn't know. If we had realized that anyone was here, I'd have come out here myself. We thought it would find the problem, report back, and that would have been the end of it," Rease said, his smile gone, but completely calm, "and you have my deepest condolences for what happened."

"Thank you for that, even if it is too late," McCrea said, folding his hands.

Rease took a sip of his coffee before continuing.

"Did you ever access the mission core on the GOBLY-N?"

"I did so at the advice of Auto."

"Who?" Rease said, confusion apparent on his face.

"Oh sorry, I was talking about the autopilot."

"Interesting. Why did you access its mission core?"

"Auto said it would revert to a secondary personality that wouldn't be a threat. He and out TYP-R accessed GOBLY-N's head and deactivated some kind of security protocol"

Rease whistled long and loud

"I'm guessing something went wrong with them after they turned off the security system," Rease said, an edge to his voice.

"Yes," McCrea painfully aware that he had forgotten about the two robots.

"They activated a last ditch security protocol that was put in place to stop such things. It's agate crasher virus essentially. It breaks in and freezes everything while causing a kind of mental interference in anything it touches"

"But they had high enough clearance to access the robot in the first place," McCrea said.

"It's not picky. The protocol doesn't activate if whoever tries to shut down the other security protocols has the correct codes," Rease said.

"Is there anything you can do?"

"Yes, we can deactivate the virus. I'll send Travis to your repair ward with the codes if you would like."

"That would be great, thank you," McCrea said a smile creasing his lips."

"One little favor first," Rease said

What?" McCrea asked, a suspicion dawning. Rease had offered to fix Auto and TYP-R, but it was going to cost them.

"I want my two robots back. Simple as that."

"I hate to say this, but they are useful to us, and they seem willing to help."

Rease paused with his coffee halfway to his lips.

"Willing? They don't have minds, Captain. Just lines of codes."

"All the same, we could use their help."

"After all they've done. After all, as you said, they are armed and dangerous. Where does your responsinility lie?"


	18. My Duty

Chapter 17

"My Duty"

"I think it would be best if you let the make up their own minds," Captain McCrea said, hands folded in front of him. The car was comfortably cool, and it felt like they were flying instead of driving a pleasant thirty down the city streets.

Rease smiled once in the seat next to him. Travis muttered something under his breath, something about people acting like they'd never seen a real car before as he twisted the wheel gently to avoid a gaggle of robots going the other way.

"I'm going to ask you some day where you get these funny ideas about robot's and thinking, Captain," Rease said.

"I could tell you now if you like," MCrea said, a hint of frustration crawling into his voice. He didn't want to be doing this. But Rease had given them the codes to fix Auto and TYP-R already, so it was pointless to disagree. Senior had already started the entering codes, so it was a matter of time before the two robots were working again.

"No need, just musing," Rease said, as Travis paused at a street corner to allow a work crew to go by.

"So, Captain, why are the two units working in the so called "Square"?"

"They're removing bio contaminants."

Rease blanched, becoming even more pale.

"How'd that happen?"

McCrea launched into an explanation of the thing that had come up through the ground, describing the corpse as he remembered. He also explained that GOBLY-N had killed it pretty much single handed, and that Artemis had saved the only survivor. When he started talking about the injuries and deaths, Rease crossed himself.

"Jesus Christ..." he said, his voice low.

"Who?

Rease looked slightly lost for a moment.

"Never mind."

The car rumbled around the corner, and through the wind shield, the Square loomed. There were still areas sectioned off, and pieces of rubble piled in places, but it was a good deal cleaner. The edge of the hole was barricaded off by a few yellow barricades, but a large section of the barricades had been removed on the far side. On that side of the hole there was a temporary decontamination tent that seemed to a good few too sizes too big.

A security detail was resting in the shade of a canopy, two stewards, a man and a woman, who quickly got up from rest as the car pulled over to them. When it stopped, Rease and McCrea got out of the back. Travis, put the engine on standby, and got out the driver's door. He resumed his default position of leaning against the hood.

"Captain, need anything?" the detail leader asked, a woman who McCrea was knew as Jan, seemingly confused by the appearance of the car and the two men. the detail wasn't a particularly odd bunch, but there job was something that had become a more or less official position within Security. They were pretty much the only people with the experience, and will, to deal with the GOBLY-N and Artemis on a regular basis. Most of the other security details had flat out refused, either do to stewards lost in GOBLY-N's original attack, or the hostage situation on the cargo deck. 60 had remarked that he'd given the detail a chance to back out on an individual basis, but he'd been politely refused by Jan, Jakes and the steward, Cale. He'd even got a refusal to leave the detail from Ed, the detail's other steward, which 60 had seem especially confused by.

"Could you call those two up here. This gentleman here would like to see them," McCrea said, gesturing towards Rease.

"We'll see what we can do," Jan said, "Jakes get on the inter-comm and see if you can call them up."

For a few minutes nothing happened as Jakes twisted the knobs on the inter-comm unit set on a crate, trying to find a clear channel. Detail 4 hadn't been issued mobile inter-comm units to guard the two robots since it was euither to keep an old immobile caster rather than pass out mobile units to a team that was going to stand still and stare at something. He was muttering under his breath. With a click, there was a hiss of an open channel.

"Artemis, can you hear me? "Jakes asked, speaking into the small mic set next to the unit.

There was a pause, and a voice crackled back.

"Yes?"

"We've got some visitors for you. Need you back on the surface as soon as possible."

There was a longer pause.

"Acknowledged," Artemis said, "ETA five minutes."

"Ah good," Rease said

"It'd be better to wait for them by the exit of the decontamination tent," McCrea suggested.

"Fair enough. Travis, wait here," Rease said as he began to follow McCrea.

"Yes, sir," Travis said with a little flippant salute, two fingers against his bowed head, the fingers tipped forward then returned to the folded arms to Rease's retreating back.

* * *

As McCrea and Rease left behind the small group around the car, Rease leaned in slightly into McCrea.

"Captain, I'm going to have to warn you," Rease said, worry in his voice.

McCrea gave the other man a surprised look.

"About what?"

"I've never done a retrieval before. Hell, no one has. I'm not sure what's going to happen."

"What?"

"I've gone over some retrieval scenarios with Travis. None of them included the primary mission cores shut down. I don't know what they'll do when I try to get 'em back under control."

"Best case?"

"They'll just follow orders from this," Rease said, pulling a grey rectangle thing out of his pocket. It was relatively small, about five inches by four. There was a smaller set of colored buttons set in a smaller square in the center of the rectangle, "and I'll get them out of here."

"And if they don't follow that things orders?"

Rease frowned, then said

"Just remember no matter what happens in the next few moments, I'm doing my duty."

"So what is your job exactly?" Jakes asked, leaning against the inter-comm crate.

Travis looked up.

"Chauffeur," he said, frowning slightly.

"Really? Seems kind of like a pointless job. The guy can't drive himself?"

Travis was silent. Jakes could feel the man's eyes boring into from behind his sunglasses.

"Just saying."

"Uh-huh"

There was a click of rock moving from the hole next to the group.

"Here they come," Cale said, looking down into the pit. Artemis and GOBLY-N were pulling themselves up the sheer rock wall of the pity, claws biting into the rough stone. They were bloodstained from cutting up section of the beast's body and dust covered from breaking rubble, looking like a pair of ghosts. They moved like spiders, shooting up the side of the wall.

"What the hell happened to his arm?" Travis asked as he gestured towards GOBLY-N as it pulled itself up the side of the pit. Its left arm had been replaced with a loading arm from a broken down robot found in one of the many abandoned factories that dotted the city. It was slightly shorter than the original, but it looked a good deal more dangerous. The heavy clamp could easily encircle a human chest, and it looked like used properly it could punch through a brick wall.

"Got shot off," Ed said quietly.

"By who?" Travis asked, incredulous.

"Eve," Jan said without thinking.

Travis laughed.

"You're telling me some regular human shot the arm of a robot like that?"

Jakes snickered.

"She means EVE Probe 01," Cale said, still watching the two robots nearing the top of the pit, voice neutral, "but everyone calls her Eve, sir."

"Huh," Travis said, still slightly incredulous, but apparently mollified, "that must get confusing,"

"Why?" Jakes asked

"Well you got more than one, right? What do you call the rest?"

Jan raised an eyebrow.

"You're serious? Do you think they couldn't pick their own names?"

* * *

It took the two robots to make their way through the decontamination tent. There was the sound of a pressure washer running at full blast. After a while, the two robots came through the front gap, the dust and blood gone. They walked over to the two humans, curiosity evident in their posture. GOBLY-N went so far as to put its face within a few inches of Rease's face, studying it like it did every new person it met. Artemis had her head cocked to the left, a question evident.

"If you're gonna do something, do it now," McCrea said, getting a look from Artemis.

"Right," Rease said pushed a button on the grey rectangle.

There was a burst of machine code, like the beeping of an alarm clock mixed with a chiming of a set of church bells. It sounded wrong, like it wasn't coming from the device at all, but from Rease's mouth, even though the man's lips didn't so much as quiver. McCrea took a step back.

Artemis's and GOBLY-N's eyes seemed to began to widen, but they froze before their optical screens could finish the motion. Neither robot had moved, each fixed the way they had stood. A clicking was coming from Artemis's head, like clockwork gone wild. Rease lowered his shoulders and sighed.

"That went well," he said, relief evident in his voice.

"How are you going to get them out of here?"

"Give them a minu-," Rease began.

He never got to finish his sentence. GOBLY-N unfroze, shuddering slightly. His eyes finished widening. And almost casually, he slashed his right arm's claws across Rease's face. The man was spun around from the force of the blow, his neck cracking with a sound like a bundle of branches being broken beneath someone's foot. McCrea caught a brief glimpse of Rease's face, his features torn lose, a nose hanging on by a few strands of flesh. His sunglasses had gone flying through the air on a bullet-like trajectory into the pit.

Artemis unfroze as well, shuddering slightly. She gave a McCrea a questioning look, and he took another step back, causing him to stumble over Rease's spread eagls corpse . McCrea gave closed his eyes and waited for the end.

* * *

Security Detail Four and Travis watched the whole episode unfold. There was a shocked silence, which didn't last long. Travis was the first to move. He ripped the car's driver door open, and yelled something that sounded like something like a burble of machine code, but Jan was sure she was just hearing a panicked voice. He seemed to be looking for something

"Jakes, get on the comm! Call 60 and tell him we have a situation," Jan said, grabbing her stunner off her belt. She was running without thinking, Cale and Ed right behind her, containment projectors ready. Jan was barely aware that she didn't stand a chance against the two robots if they'd gone crazy again. But the Captain was in trouble, and he was the heart of the colony. They couldn't lose him.

There was a boom behind her, and Jan felt something move past her right ear, ruffling her hair, stinging her skin with its passage. There was a sound like a hammer striking an iron sheet, and GOBLY-N faltered, a dent now readily apparent in his right shoulder. He roared, and stepped over McCrea, hunching low about to charge.

Jan spun around, and was greeted by a bizarre sight. Travis was holding something she'd never seen before. She guessed it was a gun, but it was a bizarre thing. It was a good six feet long, the barrel longer than the body by two feet, supported by a steel framework. A scope was mounted near the middle of the gun, looking like a video camera than a scope. The clip was huge, oversized.

Jan noticed the cable that ran from the scope to a strange device on Travis's face. It looked like a download cable. She didn't have time to think as another bullet cracked by her shoulder. A shell came flying out of the ejector port on the gun's side, easily the length of a hand and a fourth as wide. Jan ducked, and began to run back to the car.

"Don't shoot! There's a man down over there," Jan yelled, running over to his side, crouched. Travis ignored her while he adjusted aim. He fired again, and this time a bolt buried itself in the asphalt at his feet. Travis didn't flinch and chambered another round.

"Who the hell are you guys?" Jan heard Jakes shout from under the canopy. He had his stunner out, and aimed at something on the other side of the car. He was backed up against the crate, eyes wide. The inter-comm was forgotten behind him.

His problem became readily apparent. Two men had seemingly popped out of thin air. Each wore a strange set of clothes. They each wore a set of body armor, coated a dull orange from armored boot to helmet, an odd thing that looked like a slimmed down and more high tech motorcycle helmet. The face from forehead to chin was hidden by a curved plate of reflective blue glass, the helmet enfolding the edges. The suit looked like a cross between a suit of full plate armor and a soldier's fatigues. They were covered in molded armor, each piece made to cover a body part, held on by an array of plastic buckles and screws. Where there was a gap between armor plates, there were of flashes red and orange puzzle camouflage. Each suit had a strange steel backpack made of four canisters welded together.

Bizarrely, Jan noticed the BNL logo emblazoned on the center of each chest plate.

Each one was carrying a strange device. It was large tube mounted on a mount that looked like was meant to rest on the men's shoulder. Each tube was a good four feet long, and the circumference around the size of a cabbage ball. They each balanced their arm on their left shoulder, a joystick like device clutched in their right hand.

One of the men kneeled next to the car's front fender, and aimed his tube at the pair of robots. Jan couldn't figure out what was going on till it was too late. The man pushed a red button on the joystick, and the world became suddenly silent. Things were still moving, such as Jakes clutching his ears, or the spray of gravel and dust that flew up behind the man's kneeling form. Jan felt like she had been punched in the gut, and had trouble breathing. Her ears rung like she had her head shoved inside a church bell. Something soared out of the tubes barrel, a dark finned thing that cut through the air, racing forward on a fiery bloom. It left behind a contrail of grey smoke.

Before Jan could even turn around, there was a blast of heat and dust that felt like someone had set a fire right behind her. Cale let out a terrified warble as Jan turned to see the other side of the pit lost behind a cloud of dust. She couldn't see either Artemis or GOBLY-N, or more importantly the Captain. Jan clawed her way back to the feet, still clutching her stunner.

She couldn't hear anything. All she saw was Travis aiming at something over her shoulder. She was running because she didn't know what to do.

Jan tackled Travis, throwing the man off his feet. It was like hitting a brick wall, but he went down on his back anyway. Travis's left hand still clutching the rifle in an iron grip, . Jan pulled herself up , and aimed her stunner into Travis's face. What she saw made her pause for moment, the barest hints of sound returning.

His one visible eye was a miserable milky white. The iris and pupil were still there, clearly delineated by little black lines that bound them in place like a stained glass window. But he had the eye of a blind man. The device that had been connected to the rifle was like a monocle set in the body of a mechanical spider, the legs clamped into the skin with barbs that should have drawn gouts of blood.

The moment's pause was all Travis needed. His left hand came around in a blur, and smashed Jan across the jaw. Blood filled her mouth, and one of her teeth cracked and came out. The second punch jabbed her in the gut, forcing her breath out in one gasp. Then he grabbed her by the throat and threw her violently to the ground, causing pain to shoot through Jan's neck. It was hard for her to keep her eyes open.

The last thing she heard before she closed her eyes was an angry warble of machine code.

* * *

Jakes hadn't thought either when he fired his stunner. He'd seen Jan tackle Travis and had made up his mind then and there. With a quick trigger pull, his stunner beeped and fired. The end came alive, an arc of electricity dancing between the two contact points. With a flick on the grip, he switched it to the highest setting, and the end brightened again. He pulled the trigger again.

This time the gun fired, a bolt of electricity shooting from the end of the stunner and hitting the second man who was already kneeling to fire. The bolt caught him in the hip between the chest plate and torso armor. He began to jerk spastically, like a rag doll on a string, the launcher falling from his shoulder. Little bolts of electricity arced across the man's body, and he was smoking.

After ten seconds of jerking, the man fell finally. The stunner was dead in Jakes' hand, the gun's charge emptied in one shot. Jakes turned to look for something to deal with the next man. The other man was reloading placidly, sliding another missile into his launcher. He hadn't even looked up at Jakes, engrossed in his work. Jakes reached for a one of the rocks, easily the size of a grapefruit.

He barely saw the knife out of the corner of his eye. Jakes threw himself to the ground, falling awkwardly. The knife rebounded off the corner of the crate with a sound like someone flicking a wine glass. Jakes rolled, and stumbled into a half crouch. The man he had hit with a stunner was holding a combat knife, wobbling, knees bent inwards and his arms limp. Every move was telegraphed, and the knife wobbled back and forth a bit.

Jakes had seen the pose before. He'd had the pleasure of dealing with a few drunks, mostly people who had gone to town after a hard week on demolition crew. Some hadn't gone quietly and more than once a man had come at him with a broken bottle and an oddly determined look.

Of course, the man should also be a jittering wreck. A stunner on full power should have caused permanent nerve damage, even with the fancy fatigues. Against a robot it would have fried its entire system, which why it was illegal to even put one up to full power when dealing with a robot. And this guy was still standing, albeit poorly.

This thought was promptly interrupted by the next slash. Jakes fell out of his crouch, onto his backside. The man surged forward, knife ready. He flicked the knife around, now aiming the point down. Jakes rolled again, but the knife caught him this time as the man fell forward. Pain surged through Jake's shoulder, and he felt a warm curtain of wetness soaking his shirt. He got to his feet, and realized something. The knife was lodged in his left shoulder.

He gripped the hilt with his right hand and pulled. It hurt more coming out then going in, the serrated edge of the knife catching and cutting flesh. His vision flickered black and white. But at least he had the knife. Jakes turned to face the man, knife held loosely in front of him.

The man replied through a jab at Jakes' face, but he saw it coming, the fist missing by a matter of a few inches. It hurt Jakes to move out of the way. Without hesitation , he lurched forward, and stabbed with all his strength, hitting between chest plate and shoulder pad. What should have happened was the knife entering the rib cage and hitting a vital organ .The knife stuck in place.

The man responded like a champion boxer gone mad. Jakes was battered by a flurry of punches to his gut, chest and head. The last blow was a thunderous uppercut to the chin that sent stars flying across Jake's eyes. He had blacked out long before he hit the ground.


	19. The Rest of the Family

sorry for the lack of updates. School started again.

* * *

Chapter 18

"The Rest of the Family"

Captain McCrea was surprised by a few things. The first and most important thing was that he was alive. When he'd been picked up by Artemis, he had wholly expected to be throttled to death. When instead he had been carried at a good speed way from the pit and dropped behind one of the few rubble piles still left in the Square. The next was the missile that had landed precisely where he had been lying a few seconds previously.

The dust it had thrown up had blocked the other side of the pit from view, but there was the flash of red from activating containment fields, meaning that at least the stewards were still there.

Artemis raised her arm and let loose a bolt that quickly disappeared into the dust. There was a clunk. Travis's rifle boomed bank in response, blowing a head sized hole in the pile of rubble, adding more dust to the cloud. GOBLY-N pushed McCrea back into cover.

"Who the hell are those people?" McCrea was able to force out, coughing as he inhaled dust. He was struck by the absurdity of asking two robots if they knew the other people shooting at them, as if they were old friends introducing acquaintances. Artemis turned to him, ducking her massive shoulders slightly. McCrea wasn't entirely sure she wasn't going to kill him.

Whatever she was going to say didn't matter, because another missile flew overhead. McCrea swore it felt like it had missed his head by a matter of inches, the heat from the engine lapping against his back. It struck one of the abandoned store fronts along the edge of the Square, sending broken glass and pieces of shrapnel flying through the air. GOBLY-N placed his not inconsiderable bulk between McCrea and the blast, resulting in a short clatter of whizzing pieces of shrapnel and concrete striking armor plates. The air was filled with a new cloud of dust.

Artemis raised a hand, GOBLY-N moving slightly behind and to her left, both still sheltering behind the rubble. The rifle boomed again, and a round hit Artemis right in the chest plate. The robot didn't flinch, even though there was now a fist sized dent in the plating. With a casual drop of her hand, Artemis and GOBLY-N charged, bellowing war cries. They crossed the ground in bounding leaps, Artemis launching bolts into the dust.

McCrea fully expected to watch the gory deaths of three men, whether or not their motives were good or evil. He'd gone down into the pit during the clean-up and he'd seen what had happened to the frog gator corpses. There was going to be a lot of blood, and he knew full well neither robot would feel anything about getting splattered in it.

"Furies, ain't they?"

The voice snapped McCrea from the charging robots, and to the smiling face of Rease Tymhos. The man was kneeling on the rubble pile next to him. Rease's suit was torn and dust covered, the jacket and pants covered in dozens of holes from flying shrapnel. Despite that, he seemed fine, his face whole, his hair not even mussed.

McCrea saw the milky white eyes, both unblinking, even though dust was clearly visible in each. Rease held a matte black pistol in his right hand, barrel pointed at the ground.

"You were dead," McCrea said, feeling like a kid confronted by a monster from under his bed, "your neck snapped. I saw your face cut apart"

Rease raised an eyebrow.

"Semantics, captain. Some of us don't play by the rules," Rease said, flashing a bright white smile, "like those two assets of mine. I really do have to say that threw me for a loop."

"How did you survive that?" McCrea asked, still stuck on Rease's survival. His question was promptly ignored.

"I'd ask what you did to them but-," Rease chuckled, "I think I already know. Aberration at its finest," he said as began to casually toss the pistol between his hands, "and it ain't your fault."

"What?"

If Rease was actually hearing McCrea, he didn't seem to care. He seemed to be stuck in some monologue

"Once, a long time ago, I'd have liked to have been a man like you. Brave, kind and forgiving of the sins of others. Aren't many people like that in the world, not nowadays anyway. But I've come to see the failings of that kind of world view."

Rease sighed, and put the gun down on the rubble pile.

"You're a naive man. And I can never be that", Rease paused for a moment, as if to let the words sink in, "No forgiveness, no regret, no mercy, just duty. And while carrying my duty out may make me a monster, I don't regret it," Rease said, picking the gun up and putting it in chest holster he'd hidden under his suit jacket. H s

Rease leaned over to McCrea and placed his hand on the back of the captain's neck. He spoke right into McCrea's ear, his voice almost a whisper despite the chaos that was about to unfold.

"Just don't hate me for it."

Rease twitched his hand. McCrea slumped to the ground immediately, forehead meeting the rubble.

* * *

For GOBLY-N, combat always was a blur. He didn't remember much beyond a frantic collage of spiraling targeting data and enemies, faces or forms blurred by a whirl of light and grey static. He couldn't even remember how he had lost his arm. He couldn't even remember how he'd ended up in Axiom's cargo bay, half destroyed from ion cannon fire.

The armored soldiers hadn't really been a threat, at least not in the long list of possible threats that he'd accrued over the last few weeks, ranking quite a few steps below the EVE probes. Of course, the missile launchers they were carrying changed the situation. Well, at least if they had been just a little bit farther away.

GOBLY-N came across the first soldier as he was reloading his launcher, kneeling next to the front of the car. GOBLY-N slammed his clamp arm into the man's chest. There wasn't even a moment of resistance, just the sound of his ribs being cracked like wet twigs. The man was slammed into the side of the car, causing the car to slide sideways on its anti grav units. The man hit the ground with a thud, chest plate broken into a dozen pieces.

Artemis took the second man in a pair of slashes from her arm blade. The first cut through the man's launcher, neatly bisecting it in half. The second caught his arms at the elbows, savagely hewing them apart. The forearms hit the ground in a pair of matched thuds. The man fell to his knees, staring at the stumps of his arms.

GOBLY-N looked for Travis. He was easy to spot. The two stewards hovering right in front of him, their warning lights flashing. Their containment fields were put away, but they weren't moving away from the man, and it was quite easy to see why.

He had the human that GOBLY-N had learned to call Jan in a head lock, even though she hung limply in his grip, head resting on his arm. The next problem was that the man had a rather large pistol pointed at her head. He smiled as GOBLY-N came over.

"Let her go," one of the stewards said, even as it shied away from GOBLY-N. The man ignored him, instead staring right into GOBLY-N's visor. He spoke pleasantly, like he didn't have a care in the world, even as Artemis came to stand to GOBLY-N's right.

"Nice to meet you again," Travis said, smile still clear, "now stand down and submit. This can end right now."

Artemis laughed, and GOBLY-N followed, their rasping voices echoed across the Square. The man's smile faded slowly, and then sighed resignedly.

"I wish you would see reason. You're putting lives in danger, you understand that?"

GOBLY-N took a step towards Travis.

"Do you think I'm kidding?"

Artemis raised her arm blade. Travis sighed again, this time deep and long.

"I'm so sorry that it has to end like this."

Something howled. Something else picked up it up, then another, and another, till there was a reverberating chorus that filled the air with chaos, louder then the piercing wail of the sand storm alerts. It was like a solid wave of noise erupting from the buildings in front of GOBLY-N.

And then they came, spilling from roof tops, through shop fronts, through walls, and pouncing from alleys. They were GOBLY-Ns, and there dozens of them, weapons ready. Target locks screeched in his head, dozens of crosshairs imposed across his eyes. He looked to Artemis.

She shrugged her armored shoulders.

"Run."

Artemis grabbed both stewards, both of whom were staring at the onrushing wave of monsters in shock. GOBLY-N paused for a moment as he turned to run, the first attackers only thirty meters away, weapons cycling. Without truly thinking about it, he scooped up the armless man in his clamp arm. The man screamed, sound muffled by the helmet, arms flopping helplessly at the unflinching steel.

And then GOBLY-N ran, a tide of screaming GOBLY-Ns at his back. The hunt was on.

* * *

Rease Tymhos wanted to do a lot of things. Most of these things involved kicking himself in the head. The next thought was to do damage control. And carrying McCrea's limp body was one of those things, if one of the more unpleasant things. The captain wasn't particularly heavy, and he could have asked one of the multiple GOBLY-Ns still in the square to carry the captain, but this was a personal matter.

The next obvious problem was his supervisor, who was walking towards him with the steady step of a man who knew what he wanted to say and wasn't going to brook interruption. Even when a good portion of his chest had been caved in, chest plate hanging loosely from severed straps and broken buckles. He cradled his helmet under one arm, the matte blue faceplate cracked.

"You've failed," he said without preamble, even as he offered him his hand to help carry the unconscious captain. Rease gingerly lowered McCrea off his shoulder without comment. After a few moments of readjustment, they carried him between them, supporting him between their shoulders.

"You showed your hand too soon. We agreed you would finish this operation without incident. And now are two problems have gotten away with one of our assets" said his supervisor. Rease didn't open his mouth.

"And now we have three unconscious people, two of whom are quite badly hurt, all of whom saw us attack them or act bizarrely."

Rease finally spoke.

"I didn't think this…mess would happen, Eddy. I assumed the stall code would finish this quietly," Rease said, mumbling like a child confronted with his wrongs by a school teacher.

"You had two weeks of observation going for you," Eddy said.

" It's not like I could have had our people walk up to them and conduct a field test. You know that. The best I could manage was skimming gossip and rumors combined with long range observation of their movements," Rease replied as he and eddy carried McCrea the last ten feet to the staff car, which had seen much better days

The staff car had been trashed, the entire left side bent in by the impact of Eddy slamming into it. Travis was loading the two unconscious security guards into the back seat, their wounds bound. He nodded to the two men, gesturing to take the captain.

"Got them from here, Travis?" Eddy asked. Travis nodded once, carefully taking the captain from the two men. Without pausing, he loaded the captain into the back of the car like a fragile glass vase.

Rease leaned against the cars trunk, crossed his arms and closed his eyes.

"So what do you want to do now?" he asked Eddy. He knew Eddy had something planned.

"The subtle approach failed. Spectacularly I might add, with that little speech of yours, Martian."

Rease grinned despite everything. It had been a long time since Eddy had called him that. It also clued him into how deep he was in trouble, which he revised from hip deep to around his neck.

"Was a good speech though," Rease said. Eddy didn't respond for a moment.

"You're kidding me right?"

"Hmm?"

"You're the one who's supposed to be Mr. Responsible. You're the one who wanted to do this quiet, so no one got hurt. And now look where we are. The locals know we're trouble, we've got two robots on the run, and I'm missing a second iteration who you swore would be fine. Do you think this a time for jokes?"

"No, Eddy," Rease said, realizing he'd made a bad move. He opened his eyes, and looked into the Square. The GOBLY-Ns who weren't involved in scouring the city for the two runners were settled into what cover there was. They all seemed to be focused on the edge of the Square, waiting for something.

"Hear that?" Eddy said, hand moving toward the holster strapped to his thigh, "sounds like sonic booms. The cavalry is about to arrive."

"And when they do, they'll want to ask questions. Most specifically why there people are in the back of our car, and why there are more GOBLY-Ns squatting in their city," Rease said already hurrying to the passenger side door. Travis was already in the driver's seat, hands on the wheel. "Agreed," said Eddy, lifting his hand up over his shoulder and clenching his fist. He opened it again, all five fingers straight up. He then brought his hand down quickly in a chopping motion, before he climbed into the rear door of the staff car. It was already moving as his feet left the ground.

As one, each GOBLY-N on the Square's perimeter turned and disappeared into the city, running and climbing away to hide till they were called again.

Almost as an afterthought, Rease rolled down his window and tossed something out. It spun once in the sunlight, a black sphere the size of a baseball. It hit the ground, bounced once, and rolled to a stop next to one of the piles of rubble.

And then without ceremony, the car disappeared, fading from jet black to transparency and then to invisibility in a matter of seconds. Nothing marked its passage but a few puffs of dust.


	20. Ghosts

Chapter 19

"Ghosts"

It was like someone pulling you up from the stygian depths of an ocean trench. It was like reaching the end of a dark tunnel and finally seeing the sun rising before you. It was like being shown the stars for the first time.

It was also like looking across a valley of shattered skulls as the blood red sun rose like the baleful face of some dead god, and the wind rolled across it, and you were sure, so sure, you could here the teeth rattle, and the dry dusty voices moaning some fool's lament and they were laughing at you and-

It was for this reason that Autopilot 01 woke up on a table in the Axiom's repair ward screaming, spinning frantically, taser already flipping out of its compartment in one of his spokes. He felt the stun device hit skin, and heard a high pitched scream. He heard shouting, in both machine code and English.

"Give him space!"

"He got Alicia! Someone get a first aid kit!"

"Turn him off! Turn him off!"

A steel grip locked around Auto's taser spoke. Senior loomed over him, like a giant metal spider descending from its web made in th-

Auto screamed again.

"Auto, I need you to listen to me," Senior said, voice calm and clear. Auto tried to shake his grip.

"Auto, if you don't calm down, I'll shut you down again," Senior said, indicating one of his arms hanging over the boot's shutdown button. Auto froze, and his single eye regarded Senior's hand with fear.

"So you don't want that? Then put the taser away, and we can talk," Senior said.

Auto didn't do anything for a moment. Then slowly and purposefully he folded it away.

"Good, Auto, very good," Senior said, moving hi hand away from the shut down button to Auto's relief, even though the clamp was still locked around his taser spoke. Senior moved out of Auto's field of vision.

"Is she alright?" Senior said to someone Auto couldn't see. There was a burble of machine code, and Senior sighed.

"Take her up to the medical deck just to be sure," he said, weariness breaking its way through the calm tone of his voice. He swung back over Auto.

"We're going to run another diagnostic. While we're doing that, I want you to think, and I stress think, about what caused you, as they say, to flip out like that," Senior said as he began plugging in the various diagnostic sensors. Auto was still quiet, even though his eye was now frantically scanning the room, or due to his position, the ceiling.

The thing was, Auto didn't know what had made him even use his taser in the first place. Everything was so foggy in his mind, everything so slow. He could barely remember where he was, and who he was talking to on a moment by moment basis.

The diagnostic began, and a computer began to hum. Needles of warmth began to worm through Auto's systems. Auto slowed as the data tendrils began to touch upon his intelligence matrix. It pushed at the dull pain that was bubbling in his mind. It wasn't much, but it was calming. For a few moments, he could forget everything, jut revel in ignorant nothingness.

Senior swung back into view, and the comfort faded.

"What happened to you in there? Your diagnostic showed an unexplained ten percent jump in data core activity every twenty seconds" Senior asked, worry plain in his voice.

"Nothing," Auto said, trying to sound calm and failing miserably.

"Auto, there's two ways we can go about this. One is where you give me an honest account of what's been going on in your head these past three weeks. Or, and I would hate to do this, I make a judgment call and declare you unfit to return to your position. Your choice."

Auto answered slowly.

"You won't believe me."

Senior laughed a hard, bitter laugh.

"You'll have to try hard."

"Acceptable."

And with that Auto began.

They'd just shut off the primary mission core and the security grid.

"Mission Acomp-"Auto began, and promptly stopped. Something rammed into the back of his skull, sending him sprawling to the floor. He heard TYP-R cry out, and heard the rustle of fabric on the ground.

For a moment, the pain was blinding. Something was burrowing through his mind, layer by layer, breaking past firewalls and walls of data blocks. It broke into the very center of his mind, burrowing amongst the ideas and thoughts that made Auto Auto. It seemed to huddle there, like some small mammal hibernating in the depths of winter.

Even as Auto was bowled over by the pain, the edges of the ragged holes that had been ripped in his firewalls began to reform, as if the intruder was burying itself alive behind Auto's defenses. The pain was even floating away. Within moments the holes were gone as if they had never been there.

But one new stream of thought was now speaking in his mind, pure binary, basic machine code repeating over and over again:

"01101111 01101110 01101100 01111001 01110111 01100001 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110100," rang like a chorus of whispers through his head, filling the quiet spaces of his mind.

TYP-R began to help Auto up.

"What the hell just happened to you? I thought you said the security grid was shut down?"

"Negative. That was not the security grid."

"Then what was it?"

"I wish I knew. I believe we should exit."

They began to head for the temple doors. There was the sound of grinding stone, audible even above their footsteps.

"What is that?" TYP-R asked, hurrying his walk a little.

"I have no idea. Keep walking."

They were only ten feet from the stone doors when they slammed shut, throwing the room into darkness.

"We're in trouble, Auto," TYP-R said, fear in his voice.

"Not helping."

There was a click, and Auto and TYP-R were bathed in a pool of blinding white light. They both began to blink rapidly.

A figure clad in a white robe stepped into the pool of light. The robe was of badly dyed sackcloth, and it smelled of disinfectant and bleach. The figure had its hood over its head, face hidden. It spoke in a voice that was light, a young woman's voice.

"You have erred," the woman said, her head bo

"Auto, what is that thing? It doesn't seem to e a program, and it's definitely not another robot," TYP-R said, backing away from the figure.

"It doesn't seem hostile. Maybe it's just a warning protocol, trying to get us to re-instate the security grid, Auto tried, taking a step towards the woman.

"You have been judged. You have been found wanting," the woman said, raising her head slightly. Auto could just make out the glint of hr eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"There can be no redemption. There is only your transgression."

"Please, what do you want?"

The woman placed her hands on hr hood, and began to pull it back.

"Peace."

Auto would remember her features for the rest of his life.

Her features had been smoothed away, just cleaned away. Her face was just a collection of taut pieces of skin over bone. She had no mouth. There was a vague lump where her nose should be, nothing larger than a pimple. The ears had been scrubbed away, revealing two holes in the side of her head. She had been scrubbed raw, her skin still red and puffy, scratched and bleeding in some places.

But the worst things were here eyes. They weren't even eyeballs, no pupils, no iris. Just two pale galaxies of light that swung and turned in her sockets. The light in those eyes made the pool of light seem dim in comparison, a candle to a million suns. To watch those eyes was to see time be born and then die away, giving way to something new.

And it was in that moment, Auto realized he had made a mistake. The eyes sucked him in, and TYP-R as well, who screamed in dismay and terror. For a second, the world shrunk down to a pinprick of light in a vast abyss of dark, and then exploded back in a kaleidoscope of colors, blinding, wonderful, terrible and monstrous in one second of existence. Images scratched themselves across Auto's brain like the scrawling of madmen on chalkboards written with rusted nails.

He saw the Axiom burn, watched as it became a towering inferno that burned slowly, flames reaching for a red sky filled with dark clouds.

There was man in armor, leaning against a wall. His armor was blood splattered, a bloody hand marking his chest plate. He had no face, just like the woman, but there was something to his very existence that said he was smiling.

Slavering mastiffs hunted amid darkened alleys, hunting screaming shadows that clutched at the grounds as they were dragged away.

He was made to watch as a great tentacled horror that was both minute and gigantic beyond rational thought screw the tops off human skulls, even as its prey whimpered and writhed in its grip, and pluck out the brains like potatoes from the dirt.

And through it all, there were the screams. Auto had come very slowly to realize that they were his own. He was being matched note for note TYP-R, as more horrors were birthed around them.

Senior was silent for a long time. Several of the human technicians and repair bots had wandered over throughout Auto's story, drawn by the occasional hysterical fluctuation in volume. None had bothered to interrupt Auto; the human's becoming paler as the story went on. The robots twitched minutely, and occasionally fiddled with their hands. The repair ward had fallen silent, every ear and audio unit straining to hear the story, even though the listeners were trying to do their jobs.

When Senior finally spoke, he did so very carefully.

"Okay, Auto, I'm going to run another diagnostic. Then I'm going to talk to 60, and I'll get his opinion on your story. Alright? Everyone else, get back to work, please."

Again Senior swung out of Auto' field of vision and the people began to talk again, though their voices were muted.

And again the data probes began to touch his mind, and the calming feeling began to sp-

"Feels good, doesn't it? To get it all out in the open" said a pleasant voice to his left.

Auto froze.

"Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to frighten you," a pause, "… well not much more anyway. It was the only way out."

A face leaned in above him, and Auto tried to shrink into himself, even though that was resolutely impossible. The man was transparent, the repair ward visible through the back of his head. He rippled like a flag in the wind, his form wavering and reforming in the air.

"Don't say a word around these folks," the figure raised a finger and waggled it back and forth inches from Auto's eye, "they'll think you gone for a loop. I'm your ace in the hole."

Auto managed a whisper.

"Who are you?"

The man smiled a light, airy smile.

"A friendly ghost."

Auto stared up into the face, red eye unmoving.

"What?" he whispered again.

The man chuckled.

"Suffice to say, I'm lending you a helping hand."

Auto tried to look away.

"Why?"

The man seemed to look bemused for a moment, and then his face straightened back into a smile.

"I wish I knew."


	21. Interlude 2

Interlude 2

"In Other News"

It was a sunny day. One of those bright summer days of mid-June where there are a few clouds, just enough not to keep the worst of the sun off your back and baking you to a crisp. Sure the western stretch of the turnpike was barren ad dusty, covered by mountainous piles of trash, the clouds yellow masses set against a brown sky, but it wasn't particularly unpleasant. The wind was down, which meant the dust wasn't being kicked up. You could even here a little bird song , the last few hardy surviving birds who'd somehow managed to scratch a living out here.

Peter Renblow reflected that if this were a movie, it would be bloody well raining. It should be raining, he thought bitterly. But the draught had lasted these last few months wasn't fit to break for a long time, even if humanity got lucky, which not at all likely.

The accident scene started approximately a quarter mile up the road. The leftmost two lanes had been sectioned behind a series of flashing holo-signs and traffic cones. It started with a broken rear view mirror, lying dejected on the dusty concrete, shattered. A shattered headlight had been smashed flat by a semi truck, now just a thin spread of metal and glass. There was a black mark from a sudden braking, that ended as son as it began.

A little farther down the road, just as it began to rise into an elevated bridge, there were patches of shattered safety glass, little blue chips of glass shining in the sun. The rear passenger side door had been ripped off the car, black paint chipped off and the door dented like it had taken a hit from a sledge hammer. The right rear tire lay dejected on the ground, bent almost into a u shape that should have been quite impossible.

It all ended just as the elevated section began to curve slightly. When the turnpike had been built, the designers and engineers behind the project had come to realize that the average vehicle could do well over a hundred miles an hour on a bad day, the strength of highway railing got correspondently stronger. The railing had been made strong enough to stop a car trying to hit it at full speed. But, inexplicably, it had failed spectacularly. The railing, made of a collection of foot thick steel pipes filled with rebar reinforced concrete and backed up by a lattice made of gravity buffers , had been broken apart. An entire section of railing, a good forty feet, had gone over the side of the bridge. The edges of the railing where it had broken of were twisted, gravity buffers spitting out fat blue sparks as the power surged along their broken projectors.

The fall had been a good twenty feet. The car had landed right side up, but the entire frame had buckled under the impact. All the doors had been blown open by the impact , and the tires had been forced out at odd angles from the axels. There were more scattered shards of glass spread around the buckled form of the car, each on like a star in red sky.

The grand finale had been the most horribly clichéd. The gas tank had exploded, scattering flames and red hot pieces of metalwork across the landscape. Some of the trash piles were still burning, some a good quarter of a mile away from the wreck of the car.

The car had been left a burnt out carcass, still smoking, even after several fire fighting robots had put out the blaze. Several load lifters had already been brought in to move onto a large flatbed truck, but that was for later.

"Are you sure it's them?" Peter asked, looking over the side of the bridge, "absolutely sure?"

"Yes," the policeman said, "the crash box survived, and even in that bad of a wreck, it was still transmitting their signal."

Peter was silent. He didn't want to imagine what it had been like in those last few terrible minutes, trapped in that twisted wreck, a few moments, a few minutes, maybe before it exploded, incinerating those inside. He hoped they hadn't been awake for that, that the crash had killed them, or they'd fallen into merciful unconsciousness

"Who did this?" Peter asked, watching as a pair of body bags were carried into a dusty white morgue vehicle. They'd barely been able to tell the two corpses apart.

"We don't know. We have a few witnesses but what they're saying is contradictory at best. Some say one car, some say two or three, and one swears blind that there was nothing near them when they crashed," the officer said, straightening the brim of his hat absentmindedly, " bless 'em, but most of them barely saw anything happen in the dark. We don't know how many people were on the road last night, who might've seen anything."

"How long before you can figure anything out?"

"Who knows, sir? The crime scene investigators don't have a lot to go on."

"Has anyone called my wife?"

"I wouldn't know. "

"Thank you, officer."

"I'll be around if you need me, sir."

Peter Renblow wandered back over to his car, which had been parked behind one of the many police cars in the blocked off lanes. No one had asked him to move it yet, though the drivers stuck in the slow moving traffic were giving him the proverbial eye. On any given day, Peter might have felt awkward about contributing to the continued mess of an interstate system, but today was a day where each angry face was an insult he was having trouble bearing.

He noticed another civilian car, if you could call it that. It was simply a monster. It was matte gray, and it had no ornamentation except a rather forced BNL hood ornament that looked like it didn't have the right to be there. The windows were slightly shaded, but it was light compared to the near pitch black that was preferred due to the hotter and hotter months. The car was wider than a standard model, easily taking up the width of ten foot lane without an inch to spare. The tires were larger than necessary, but they were simple and utilitarian models that had all purpose micro-grip treads that was something you associated with construction vehicles.

The man who drove it was not the person Peter wanted to see right now. He'd lost too much to deal with whatever that man had come to tell him needed doing. But Peter was not that lucky. The man was standing near Peter's car, head bowed and arms crossed

"Mr, Renblow, I'm so sorry," said Christophe Brenner, looking up. His suit was grey, clean and crisp, with creases you could cut your fingers on.

Peter had always been unnerved by Christophe. The man was something of a legend. He was relic of the old days, before BNL ran the world. He'd been a United States Marine before BNL bought out pretty much every national army, regional militia , and armed band over the better part of two decades. Whether Christophe had been bothered by that, he'd never mentioned it to Peter. But in appearance, he still looked every inch of the man the stories said he was.

They said (the usual "they" who say a lot of things) that he'd led quite a few of the ops that had made up BNL's darker histories. They said he'd been the first man on the ground in Chicago when the city's custodial A.I. went insane and started using the maintenance droids as a personal army. It was said that he'd led the armored column that had broken resistance to BNL governance in the Balkans. It was whispered he'd taken a bullet for a BNL chairman then beat the assassin to death with his fists.

He wasn't a particularly large man, but he seemed to tower over anyone he met. He was clean shaven and his hair was gray. At fifty eight he was remarkably fit for his age, and possessed of a surprising intelligence which belied his profession. He was witty when he felt like it.

His most telling feature was the scars on his face. The left side of his face was a mass of scar tissue, a crosshatching mess of overlapping cuts and severe burn damage. It started at his hairline, went down the side of his neck and below his collar. It reached across the bridge of his nose and back down to the other side of his mouth. His left eye, in a time when mechanical replacements were more and more common, was dead and milky white. He always seemed to wear a half smile, even at the worst of times.

"Thank you, colonel," Peter said coldly, hoping the man would get the message. Which he did not.

"I've sent one of my men to make sure that your wife is alright, Peter," Christophe said, unfolding his arms slowly.

"Have you?"

"Standard courtesy for this kind of thing. I've sent someone along to check in the other members of the design teams and their families."

Peter froze.

"This kind of thing?"

"I do believe that's the expression I used, Peter."

Christophe's expression didn't change. Peter walked straight up to Christophe, faces inches apart.

"My son and daughter in law are dead! My only son is gone! This is not a "thing", Christophe! I think this a completely different level of shit!" Peter said, yelling and not caring who saw or heard. Christophe didn't say a word, just refolded his arms with the same slowness.

"Do you understand me? Can you even for a moment understand what I'm going through?"

"Probably not, Peter, and I won't pretend to have a heart you know I don't have. But our job is more important than this," Christophe said, slow and even.

Peter laughed hysterically, the laughter of a man who's been goaded beyond grief and rage into the disquieting seas beyond. Several police officers looked over, nervous looks on their faces.

"You think I care about the damnable House project? About this new wave of killing machines that I'm helping to make for your sake?"

Christophe was the design team's military advisor, as well as the security supervisor, which meant that his own team of ex-military advisors often doubled as body guards and site security. Whether Christophe had been one of those behind the orders that started the project, he had never mentioned. But he always had a way of suggesting things that might be useful.

"If you don't want to care about it, that's fine, Peter. But do me one favor."

"What? What could I possibly do for you to help you in your hour of need?" Peter asked, tears in his eyes.

Christophe pulled an envelope out of his pocket. It was a simple paper envelope, with a name and an identifier written on the front in surprisingly flowing cursive: Angeline 130-Deck C, First Class. One of the corners bulged out slightly.

"I know for a fact that you're going to be on the Axiom when the evacuation starts."

"Yes? Why?"

"Just take this to the room on the front. I can't trust anyone else to bring it there. Personal reasons."

Peter slid the letter into his pocket.

"I'm going home, Christophe, to my wife, to tell her what happened. Tell Edwin I'm going to be out for a while."

Christophe nodded once.

Peter got into his car, started it, and pulled off onto a service road that he had used to get to that section of the turnpike.

As he pulled away from the interstate, Christophe watched him go. He raised his hand in a gesture of farewell. Peter watched him disappear in his rear view mirror for a long time.


	22. A Simple Offer

Chapter 20

"A Simple Offer"

60 let out a long and exasperated sigh.

The sad truth of 60's life was that he preferred being a mindless drone. He had liked not having thoughts. He had liked his blankness, the lack of even knowing what to be lacking was. He had doe as he was ordered and he had no responsibility for anyone or anything. There had been peace in that, in that perfect emptiness. Sometimes, just for a few hours or so, he'd just let his mind go completely blank and he'd follow his old patrol route through the Axiom till he was needed again.

Now he was more or less in charge of the colony, which would have been an incredibly daunting task normally, and he would have failed miserably if he had even been in anything approaching a leadership role a decade ago. He hadn't even really wanted to reform Security, even with 28's urging. He'd found peace in carrying construction supplies and garbage. But times had changed, and in the end, they'd needed someone to make sure construction sites stayed clear, that when a sealed building was open that there wasn't anything hazardous within, and to keep order when a particularly bad sand storm hit.

And now, as the council was devolving into the second shouting match in the last twenty minutes, he was desperately wishing this was all a bad dream.

The issue of many of the shouted insults and panicked declaration was the fact that McCrea was gone The man was part of the essential bedrock of the colony. Without him, they were all lost.

Every single department head had turned up, bringing along a few of their senior area supervisors. And of course, as 60 had noted early on in the meeting, Eve and Wall-E had been invited as well. 60 didn't hold any particular malice to the two, but he always wondered why they got invited to decision making events like this.

"I understand we're are all very tense right now," said 28, hovering next to 60, " but I'm sure if we all calmed down –"

He was ignored. Most of council had chosen sides between John, whose face was a bright red as he yelled, and Olsmen who's face was a good shade redder. Each of the various department heads was either adding their own running commentary, or engaged in their own shouting match. 60 was glad they'd used the conference room, shut off as it was from the rest of the Axiom. People didn't need to see their leaders like this.

There were a few who didn't care to add anything to the conversation. 60 noticed Dolores Cervantes was sitting quietly at the far end of the table, sipping a cup of coffee, ignoring the shouting with a vaguely distracted look on her face. Wall-E and Eve were having a conversation of their own, a mix of sign language and one syllable sentences. 60 couldn't catch what they were saying, and the art of sign language was lost to him, but they seemed deep into their conversation.

60 sighed again, and spoke.

"Ladies and gentlemen please, there is no call for this!" he said, turning the volume of his speech unit up to a near deafening level. This silenced the room, even if only so that the two groups could turn to see who interrupted them.

"This is not how we should conduct ourselves," 60 said, volume lowered to his normal speaking tone, "and I'm sure that the Captain would not like to see us acting that way."

It was an unfair card to play, but it was all 60 could think to do. He knew shame was a powerful thing. It had transformed Auto in its way, making him eager to help the colony, even if its very existence went against every fiber of his being. For the moment, 60 had the initiative.

"If there was anything I could do to bring the Captain back, I would do it. But I can't, so we need to think, like reasonable people" 60 said, voice grim, "any suggestions?"

The council was silent for a moment, each member exchanging looks with their opposite.

"We could activate that communicator," Olsmen said tapping the table.

"If that's even what it is," John retorted, ", for all we know it could be a bomb."

"Really, John, you really think that? If it was really a bomb, why make us press the button ourselves?"

"They kidnapped McCrea. I don't doubt they'd try to kill us at the drop a hat," John said, crossing his arms.

"Which they do you mean?"

This was the man problem with coming up with any solution. No one knew what had gone on in the Square. They'd found shell casings, claws marks, explosive damage and even a little blood, but nothing that suggested who had done what or why. The explosions and roaring had drawn the entirety of Security and every curios onlooker, but by the time the first EVE probes reached the Square it was over. That the colony's first human guests had gone missing, as well as their vehicle, was troubling. That was still overshadowed by the disappearance of the Captain and the security team four. People wanted answers.

Finding the communication device was another issue. No one knew who had left it behind, but Senior had had conjectured it had been dropped at high speed, since its casing was scratched and marked. The repair ward had tried to scan it, but it had steadfastly refused to give up any of its secrets. They had been able to ascertain it did give off a signal, and appeared for all intents and purposes benign.

"We can't know which group left it behind, but it could be whoever left it for us wanted to talk to us," Olsmen said, reaching for the small black metal sphere, which had been left in a bowl in the middle of the table.

"Now, wait a minute, Olsmen, we still have no idea what that thing does," John said, reaching across the table to slap Olsmen's hand away from the device.

"What do we have to lose?" 28 asked.

"Our lives?" said John.

"Still nothing ventured, nothing gained," 28 said.

"He has a point," Olsmen said making a successful grab for the sphere.

"You can't be serious," John said. Several of the other council members voiced their agreement.

"I think it's our best chance of getting the Captain back," 60 said.

If you think so," John said, "but who's going to activate that thing?"

"Eve, would you like the honors?" 28 asked, cutting 60 off before he could say a word. 60 knew that 28 had an appreciation of what Eve and Wall-e had done to get humanity back to Earth. He had a habit of deferring to them, even if it wasn't their call.

Eve nodded and floated over to the sphere, unfolding her hand to pick it up. With a moments fiddling, she pressed a depression in the sphere.

With a click, the sphere activated. Eve dropped it with a yell, and her ion cannon activated, ready to fire. It hit the table with a clunk, and rolled a few inches. It stopped, and was still. The only sound was the hum of Eve's ion cannon, which was firmly fixed on the sphere.

Silently, a piece of the sphere slid inwards. Then a grey mist began to spill out, slowly like a morning fog.

"What the he-" John began, but was dumb struck before he could finish. The fog was beginning to spill out faster now, rising to the ceiling. It swirled and spun, faster and faster, light catching and flashing silver.

The first thing they noticed were the shoes. They were brown leather, finely made and polished to perfection. With increasing speed, legs began to appear, wearing well tailored pin striped suit pants. Next came the torso and arms, wearing a dress shirt that bore the same pattern of pin stripes. The hands sprouted slowly from the wrists. A golden wedding ring shone on the right hand's ring finger.

The neck eventually grew from shoulders, and a head grew from that, inch by unnerving inch. The face formed like it was being sculpted from clay, features gaining definition by the second. A pair of sunglasses grew from behind the ears, and settled in front of the eyes. The hair was short and clean cut.

Rease Tymhos smiled.

"Ladies and gentleman," he said, "good afternoon."

"Halt!" 60 and 28 shouted in unison, activating their containment field projectors, firing even as they came out of their slots. The beams locked around Rease's torso and waist. Rease frowned.

"That's a crying shame. I come when called and this is the greeting I get," he said, and took a step forward. Well as least his legs did, bringing along his arms and head. His torso and waist stayed in the containment field, staying in the exact same posture as they had when he had entered the room

"Someone get more security in here!" John yelled, getting up from his seat and backing away from the table.

The conference room door's banged open and two guards ran in, stunners out. They took one look at the somewhat dismembered man on the table and opened fire. Both stunners cracked loudly, an electric bolt shooting through the air. One caught Rease in the head, the other in left leg.

He burst apart, becoming a grey swirling fog which sprayed across the room like a miniaturized sand storm. After a few moments, the air cleared, every surface coated in a fine grey dust. Dolores coughed, sounding like she was hacking up a lung. 60 and 28 were left holding a swirling ball of fog in their containment fields.

"Everyone all right?" John called out, making his way over to Dolores, who was bent over coughing in her seat. There was chorus of yeses, as well as few muttered curses.

'I'm fine, thanks for asking," said Rease, his voice sounding like it had been run through a synthesizer and then distorted by static. Eve turned slowly towards Wall-e. The little robot was staring at his hands, examining them carefully. He was almost still, except for turning his head from side to side, and clenching and un-clenching his hands.

"What an odd little fellow. Got quite the mind rapped up in here," Rease said, his voice issuing from Wall-e's voice box. The conference room was silent.

"Ah, so now you don't shoot," Rease said, flexing one of his hands, "I really do have to say that this tin can has some odd memories."

"Get out," Eve said, ion cannon still out, but not exactly aimed at Wall-E.

"Ah, so you're the EVE probe who took out one of my units. Twice, I might add."

"Get out."

"He has such thoughts about you know. Love, if you could call it that, and perhaps, just perhaps, a bit of fear. He saw you fight in the cargo deck."

"Get out or I'-"

"What? Destroy me? I'm afraid I know for a fact you won't do that. He knows you far too well."

Eve put her ion cannon way, arming folding back into a fin.

"Good girl," Rease said," now, as to what I've come to say."

The council members were still quiet, but a few were still out of their seats. 60 and 28 had dropped the ball of fog, which had drifted back down to the table. The two security guards were still by the doors, eyeing each other nervously. Rease cleared his throat.

"Under BNL executive order 396, signed into law by BNL President Alton Destensen, I declare that BNL Franchise New York is under martial law. Any violation of this order will result in persecution, by force if need be, of any who disagrees with the dictates laid down by the BNL Central, or its proxies," Rease said, folding his hands into one another.

"You can't do that. BNL's dead and gone," John said.

Rease sighed.

"It doesn't matter what you believe. There is simply the fact of what I'm saying. Deny it if you want. Listen if you think its worth it.

John snorted.

"Right. I doubt anything you have to say is worth a damn."

"Fair enough. As my first administrative order-"

"Keep believing that," Olsmen said, fists balled

"The colony, which is of arguable legal status and providence, is to be evacuated within the next ten hours. Any civilians who remain within the New York zone after that time will be under lockdown, and will not be allowed to leave without my express permission. This order will be enforced by BNL Primary Security, such as it is. We will brook no interference, ladies and gentlemen."

"You can't do that," John said, getting a chorus of agreement and curses from the council.

"Doesn't matter what you want to believe. My people and assets are in order, waiting on my word. You've already wasted ten minutes."

"What?" 60 said, panic in his voice.

"I started counting the moment your probe hit the call button. And time's still tickin' away."

"You're insane," Eve said.

"If you want me to be so, I can."

With a speed that scared Eve, Rease activated Wall-e's cutting laser and with a quick flick of his head cut off Wall-e's right hand. Eve screamed, aiming her ion cannon at Wall-e again. He sagged as if he were a puppets strings had been cut violently, whimpering in pain and fear.

Rease's voice came from the air now, a buzzing hiss that sounded like parchment being burned.

"You've got your warning, and your time. Best of luck, for what its worth."

With another click, every speck of dust in the room was sucked back into the sphere. It was like a miniature dust storm that shrank in on itself in seconds. A few papers were sent flying through the air.

For a few moments, there was nothing but stupefied silence, and quiet glances between the council members. John spoke first, still standing by Dolores.

"Who the hell are we dealing with?"

60 answered him quickly.

"Does it matter? We have an evacuation to organize."

* * *

"Was that the right thing to do?"

"Does it matter, Martian? Your actions are hardly moral. "

"Just my part to play. Hate it though You and yours?"

"I'm interested in those people you brought in."

"Are you really g-"

"Probably. I like to keep my hand in. Plus, I've got some techniques I've got the itch to try out."

"You're a bastard."

"You know it. That's all we are."


	23. Ideal Preparation

Chapter 21

"Ideal Preparation"

McCrea woke slowly, aware that he was in a very stiff bed. His neck ached. He felt bandages pressed onto his facer, stuck there uncomfortably. The blanket was rough wool, that scratched at his skin with its course weave. The pillow was comfortable, yet stiff and cold.

A little at a loss, he opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. He was in a small storage room, the sodden remains of cardboard boxes stacked on rusted shelves. His cot had been placed square in the middle of the room. A small utility lamp glowed in the corner, greenish light casting strange shadows across the walls. Something scurried away into the dark, beady eyes gleaming. The door was wide open.

Without a second thought, McCrea rolled out of the cot. This in turned tipped the cot over with a crash, winding himself in the process. Struggling out of the blanket, he got to his feet. Escape was his only goal, escape from whatever madness Rease had trapped him in.

Barely pausing to think, McCrea made his way into the hall way. It was clear, dusty but mostly clean. There was nothing on the walls. But what mattered most was the open door farther down the hall to his right, sunlight shining through. McCrea ran, feet pounding on the cold concrete, not even caring where his boots had gone.

Heart pounding, McCrea swung himself around the door frame, feet skidding painfully on the suddenly rougher concrete. He was greeted by a bizarre sight. The sky scrapers stretched out around him, many missing windows like gap toothed grins.

Before him, side by side, covered by brown camouflage nets were a pair of aircraft. They were painted pitch black. They were tadpole shaped, a thick head and body tapering off into a thin tail. Mounted on either side of the body were a pair of stubby, rounded struts with each supporting an anti grav motor, a rounded cylinder with a spherical end. The tail mounted similar motors, though each was a good deal smaller. Squinting a bit, he also spotted similar aircraft perched on the rooftops of other skyscrapers, each one hidden by the same type of camouflage net.

While it might be suicide to fly one, it was also McCrea's best chance out of there. He took a step out onto the baking concrete. It was uncomfortable, his skin feeling like it was going to blister off if he stood there much longer.

The snarling started a second later. McCrea recognized the sound, and looked to his right.

It was a GOBLY-N, crouching only a few feet from the door. It still towered over McCrea by a good foot, even on all fours. Its shoulder mounted machine cannon was out, the multiple barrels locked on his head. The purple eyes seemed to glow even in the strong sunlight, casting a purple sheen across its face. It flexed the claws on its hands almost as if it were cracking its knuckles.

McCrea retreated through the door, backing away from the snarling robot, keeping his eyes on it as long as he could. He grabbed the door handle and slammed the door closed. The snarling stopped immediately without even tapering off.

With a terrified exhalation, McCrea sagged against the wall and waited for his heart to stop beating frantically.

McCrea spent the next half an hour quietly wandering through the darkened halls of the sky-scraper. It was mostly private offices, the private work places of business directors and the like. The ceiling lights had long been destroyed by rain and disrepair, but here and there, someone had taken the time to place another survival lamp.

As he made his way down to the next floor, taking careful steps down creaking concrete stairs, he began to hear strange noises, sounds that reminded him of heavy machinery. The next flight had another open door, artificial light shining through. McCrea crept down the last few steps, heart beat speeding up.

A few steps brought McCrea to a catwalk, a fresh addition to the building since it lacked the rust one might expect. The room below was massive. Someone had smashed through four floors of cubicles and office space. There was no debris, meaning it had either been carefully hidden or carried down to the bottom floor by hand to be left amongst the garbage piles in the streets below. The central supports had been left standing, a cross hatching night mare of steel beams.

Among the beams, dozens of platforms had been set up, flat steel plates bolted and welded into place. Ladders and un-railed walkways had been set up, connecting each platform to another.

Dozens of soldiers were working on the platforms, wearing similar armor plates as those he'd seen in the Square. Several seemed to working heavy machines, generators of some kind that spun in and glowed bright green in anti gravity cradles. A pair of men, working on a platform right across from the captain, were working some kind of fast moving grinder, sharpening what looked in McCrea's eyes something similar to Artemis's arm blade. But many of them seemed in the process of cleaning their weapons, a mix of automatic rifles, missile launchers and heavy machine guns.

Far below, hard to see through the platforms, were squads of GOBLY-Ns sitting at stand-by, ranked up in two parallel rows of ten. There orange camouflage had disappeared is favor of the standard red and black markings. He was sure he spotted the gleam of blue paint, much like that of Artemis's.

"Fantastic, aren't they?"

McCrea turned toward the voice, fists balling.

Rease was wearing a set of the same armor as his soldiers, though it was more ornate. The camouflage had been replaced with a solid slate grey, shiny and unmarked by dust. The shoulder pads were wider, sturdier looking, edges marked out in gold leaf. On the central chest plate, the BNL logo had been moved aside slightly, sharing the center of the armor with heraldry of a golden lion rampant against a red, cratered moon. His helmet swung loosely on a strap attached to his belt.

"They've been waiting a long time for field work. They've drilled most of their lives for something like this," Rease said, leaning against the rail, looking out over the hive of activity.

McCrea looked for anything to use as a weapon, a thought that might not have entered his mind a few days ago. A pipe wrench, matte black had been left , perhaps rather carelessly on the grating of the catwalk. McCrea picked up quickly, eyes still on Rease, who wasn't looking his way.

"Though, I wish it hadn't come to this," Rease said.

With a yell, McCrea swung the wrench, catching Rease in the side of the head. The blow connected solidly, a shock running down the captain's arm. There was a crack of something snapping under the blow.

The younger man didn't even flinch, not even registering the blow which should have cracked his skull. He caught McCrea's hand in his left hand, stopping him cold.

"Quite done?" he asked, squeezing his hand slightly.

It didn't look much, but that tiny squeeze felt like it was crushing McCrea's hand in a vice like grip. He could hear bones grating together, and his finger nails were being ground into his palm. With a little bit of force, the captain was being driven to the ground. McCrea grimaced, and nodded his head.

"Good man," he said, letting go

"What the hell did you do with the Jakes and Jan?" McCrea asked, still looking at the ground.

"They are safe enough, I assure you," said Rease, with a dismissive gesture, "our medical staff is taking care of them as we speak."

"And I should believe you because…?"

Rease sighed.

"You don't have to believe me, or trust me or like me, but what I say is the truth of the matter."

"Right. Like what happened in the Square"

With a roll of his eyes, Rease looked down at McCrea.

"I have my way of doing my duty, you yours. I might not pursue it in a morally… pleasant manner, but I get results.'

"What makes you think that makes up for anything you did?"

Rease sat down next to McCrea, armor grinding against the steel grating. He gestured towards the soldiers still at work on the platforms.

"I wanted you to see this, to finally see what you're dealing with. This whole mess is bigger than you and me, than this colony, than a couple of rogue robots. We are going to get our assets back, even if it means we have to burn this city down."

"What could matter so much about two rogue robots that you could do this?" McCrea interjected, defiance edging his words.

"You'd know better than me," Rease said, " isn't that why you're here at all? Because two rogue robots made a choice that decided the fates of everyone in this city?"

"Don't even thi-"

Rease closed his eyes and put his head back. The question that came next was a whisper, hard to hear. He could hear a sudden sadness in the young man's voice, instead of faintly mocking tone he tended to use

"Why did they do it?"

McCrea was taken aback by the sudden change in tone.

"What?"

"Why'd they do it?"

McCrea thought for a moment. Even in ten years of knowing Eve and Wall-e he still wasn't a hundred percent sure.  
"Because… love's a powerful thing, even in the worst of times. And sometimes, it's worth every bit of pain it causes."

Grinning slightly, Rease opened his eyes

"Thank you for that answer at least. Even if it's illogical."

Rease whistled. A soldier appeared at the door that McCrea had entered the room through, a pistol on his belt.

"This has been most useful conversation, captain. But I must ask you one more thing."

McCrea was already on his feet, resigned to being locked away in the storage closet.

"What?" he asked.

"Did either of the two robots mention any names? Anyone at all? Even a "

"No...what does that have to do with anything?"

"Proves it's not too late for what I have planned," Rease said, standing up slowly.

"And what is that?"

McCrea looked into Rease's blank, milky eyes, still defiant. The younger man frowned

"That will be all, captain. Trooper, take him back to his quarters," Rease said, already turning away.


	24. Doppleganger

Chapter 22

"Doppelganger"

There are few things more interesting to watch from above then a mass evacuation. It's not that you can make out the individual in the mass, because that's utterly beside the point. It's a waste of energy and time. What you want to see is the way a crowd whose size stretches into the thousands, how it writhes around obstacles like some giant obscene human snake, to see where chokepoints form because people see the route to safety as a one way street.

It would seem that in the process of ordering a mass evacuation, Rease Tymhos had failed to grasp the size the size of the colony. Ten thousand had been a single section of the ship, and the colony stood at the fifty thousand mark easily, more if you included the veritable legion of robots who'd cast there lot with the colony. And every single soul that could be convinced to leave was heading to the Axiom.

You could make out the Security checkpoints, shrinking islands in the unending tide of people, entire families carrying everything they had with them, robots carrying what they couldn't. Here and there an overburdened hover tram carried supplies that couldn't be abandoned by the colonists. Some were being pushed along since their anti-grav motors could barely keep them a handful of inches off the ground.

Trying to navigate this mess would be worthless. Trying to get anywhere quickly on foot would be insane. Of course, there are some messages that need to get to some places faster than others.

Which was why, when a hover tram pulled up to one of the entrance stairs to be unloaded, a sharp eyed security guard spotted something on top that shouldn't have been there. It was a burlap sack, rather large, crudely tied closed with what looked like rope. The only thing that made it bizarre was that it had been placed on top of a series of containers of stored corn, and the agricultural section had stopped using bags around the times rats began to make their resurgence.

So with all due diligence, he climbed on top of hover cart as the crowd swarmed past him up the stairs and into the Axiom. With a few minutes of struggling, he managed to undo the poorly tied rope at the bag's opening.

A few seconds later, he was screaming for help.

The Axiom's bridge was in chaos. Robots hovered and buzzed through the air, some carrying messages scrawled by desperate Security teams who'd lost intercom contact, or reporting on bottlenecks in the flow of people out of the city. A dozen aging intercom units had been set up on the deactivated bridge controls, operators calling out about this problem or that accident, and trying to keep the evacuation moving despite the intercom channels fading into static at random intervals.

Auto didn't care. There wasn't much he could do, besides open locked doors, or get ship systems running from a dead stop. He was merely a watcher at the moment.

And it wasn't that he wasn't being trusted either. A repair bot by the name of Tesk was in the corner of the bridge, keeping a nervous eye on the autopilot. He'd been told that the robot was there just to make sure he didn't relapse into whatever had hit him. But it was also a quiet reminder that he wasn't quite right in the head.

The next more distracting thing was the man who'd followed him up from the repair ward. The man had taken to wandering around the bridge, examining consoles as people and robots scurried about, sometimes through the space he was occupying. He had a sense of child like wonderment about him, eyes wide. Auto was still disquieted by the fact that no one else could see the man as he meandered through the bridge.

He did not believe in ghosts, since cold logic indicated rather clearly that it was completely and utterly impossible. He'd checked his data core for flaws, for anything that looked wrong. Everything came back absolutely fine, not an a single hiccup. Which still did not explain the man making his way back over to him.

"Quite an amazing view you got here, friend," the man said, gesturing toward the window that showed the Lido deck, which was rapidly filling with supplies and refugees.

Auto didn't know how to respond, or whether he could. If he spoke, that would just reinforce the rumor he'd gone completely insane. The man gave him a questioning look.

"Don't talk much do you?"

Another few moments of silence.

"Fair enough."

Auto tried shooing him away with one of my spokes with as little motion as possible.

The man laughed, teeth flashing white against his dark skin.

"Not going to work, unfortunately. We're stuck together for the foreseeable future."

Auto managed a carefully modulated whisper.

"Why?"

Again, just as he had done in the repair ward, the man considered the question

"Can't really say. Say, do you think it might have something to do with this?"

Out of thin air, the man produced an oddly nice replica of the plant that had ended the Axiom's time in space. It was even in a boot.

But it was subtly wrong, and it took Auto a moment to see what the problem with the plant was. The leaves were not quite rounded as he remembered him, and little blue lines ran up the stem, a crazy cross hatching that formed a network the cut the green into a mosaic of shades. And a small white flower bud was growing at the top.

"Recognize it?"

"Yes, more or less," Auto said softly as he could.

"Good, because it's a part of you."

"What?" Auto spat out rather more forcefully than he wished. Tesk didn't notice over the general chaos of the bridge.

"This plant is part of your memory. Painful, in a way, good in another," the man said, holding the plant closer to Auto, "but what it truly represents is something a little more dangerous than that. It's the perfect virus, a much a part of me as it is a part of you."

Auto tried to shrink away from the plant.

"Don't worry. It's more or less safe., though it's still got some roots in your data core," the man said.

The plant seemed to shrink into the man's palm, disappearing without argument.

"But I need your help to form it to my purposes. And we both know time is of the essence."

"The evacuation is proceeding well," Auto said, gesturing toward the Lido deck.

"Well enough to get the colony in a rat trap. I'm thinking , by tonight, this will all be over and done. Either something goes right, or everyone dies.

"Not possible."

The man laughed.

"I wish that were true. I wish I knew how I know the truth."

"The ship is well protected, well guar-"

"I've seen your mind. I know your programming. I see the drive behind your life, if you want to call it that. The people who want to see the end to this have that same drive, same will, stronger perhaps. They simply don't care what gets in there way. It's a part of them, a directive…if that makes any sense."

"I didn't think humans thought like that," Auto said thinking of the often monumental works he'd seen the colonists take on.

The man shrugged.

"I just call it like I'm forced to call it. I know good men die, and terrible men change the world. Can't do much about it," he said, his voice resigned.

"So why are you here?" Auto asked.

"Never said I liked how it worked, friend. Never said that's how it always is. Just how I'm told it is. Doesn't mean we can't find an edge to turn it in our favor."

"How?"

"Turn what poisons you to a purpose."

"And do what?"

The man looked wistfully at Auto, and shook his head.

"I don't know. I hope I'll know when the time comes."

Auto was about to respond when the man's head snapped up. He was looking out across the lido deck.

"Did you hear that? Did you hear that?" the man whispered, fear in his voice.

This worried Auto. If the possible manifestation of his insanity had gone crazy, then he was well and truly doomed

"Do you have a security feed for your medical ward?" The man asked, frantically gesturing to the set of screens and buttons that made up the Axiom's control panels.

"Yes, why?"

"Bad things coming."

* * *

The security camera wasn't set at a particularly good angle to see the scene unfolding in the medical ward, but there seemed to be a ripple of panic. It wasn't helping that Auto was watching the video in his own eye, trying to hide it from the rest of the bridge crew. This led to the image being red and grainy, something was not at all helpful.

But it was easy to see the group of figures clustered around a surgery table in an emergency room. There were several surgical robot scattered around, as well as two human doctors, each working around a third person on the table.

The figure was wearing some kind of armor, a face enclosing helmet left on its side beneath the table. It looked like the visor had been smashed. Auto noticed that the figures arms terminated at the elbows, ends covered in a black mass of something Auto couldn't make out. One of the human surgeons gestured towards something Auto couldn't see outside the camera's range. A robot quickly hovered into view, a D-FIB. One of the surgeons pointed, and the robot disappeared behind the group of robots and humans. There was a buzzing of electricity.

Nothing seemed to happen for a few moments. There was another buzz of electricity. Then a shout.

One of the doctor's staggered back from the table, shouting. He walked backwards like he was practicing a comedy routine, then slammed into a wall, and sagged down out of sight. There were droplets of blood tracing his path.

The rest of the emergency room was in chaos. Several of the medical robots were heading for the exits, voices even in more tinny than usual. The second human doctor and a pair of medical robots, as well the D-FIB were trying to back away from the table.

The soldier was now standing. The first thing he noticed was that it was a woman, hair short and possibly blond. There seemed to be something wrong with her face, but the camera couldn't resolve what. Something fell from her lips and hit the floor.

This made the human doctor jump back slightly. The woman's head snapped around, and she charged. With a deft kick that Auto barely saw impact, the doctor was on his knees, screaming for mercy or help, but Auto couldn't tell which. Another kick caught the doctor in the side of the head, slamming him to the ground. He tried to shield his head with his arms, but the next kick caught him in the gut, curling him into a fetal ball.

Auto activated the alarm.

* * *

28 was rushing through the Axiom, sirens blaring. He hadn't done that in a long time. He hadn't done anything approaching a patrol of the Axiom in several years. And now he had to respond to another emergency, with no support whatsoever, since 60 had taken the majority of the security details to help funnel and order the evacuation. Not that they were having much success. They had four hours left, and only an estimated fifty or so percent of the colonists had made their way back to the Axiom, with many refusing to leave their homes.

The fact that Auto had initiated an alarm was already causing panic with the people inside Axiom. Rumors had started to spread the second the alarm had gone off, and the normally empty hallways of the Axiom were packed with a flood of colonists and robots, all wanting answers. What should have been a ten minute journey up a series of ramps and elevators from the doors near the Axiom's base was now turning into a half hour journey through a mob, which had led to 28 finally turning on his sirens, the noise lost beneath the babble of panicked voices and the louder alarm that was blaring through the ship's announcements intercoms.

But 28 was worried. The emergency had been labeled "Aggr. Bat/ Att. Hom." on his personal comm. Line, which translated into some kind of fight in the medical ward. The thoughts of all the wounded and injured, plus the entire medical staff bring in danger worried him. He knew he needed back up.

"Anyone on a security detail in the Axiom, respond," he said into his personal comm. Line, weaving his way through a gaggle of nervous service bots. All he got back was static, and a tinny voice that he couldn't make out. He tried again.

"Anyone respond, this is 28. Emergency in the medical ward, need assistance immediately. If you can hear this, make your way there now," 28 said, but hearing only static in response.

It was another ten nerve wracking minutes till 28 reached the medical ward, and found it in complete chaos. Patients who could walk, or could use a wheelchair were fleeing out of the ward, screaming, crying or silent. Several medical robots were moving those too injured to move out on hover gurneys, fighting their way through the panicked mob. The red emergency lights had activated, casting a red glow across everything.

Forcing his way through the door as best he could, he made his way into the ward. The lobby area was filled with doctors and robots trying to keep some severely injured patients alive, working on the anteroom floor. More than one of the humans spotted a black eye or a nasty bruise, while several robots had appendages snapped off. A man 28 recognized as the medical director was helping a surgeon and a pair of medical robots seal the main ward access door close with several overturned tables. There was a bloody bandage wrapped around his right arm, blood soaking the sleeve of his shirt.

"What happened here?" 28 asked, making his way over to the director.

The doctor shook his head and pointed back through the door.

"I don't know. A security detail rushed in a patient, someone they said wasn't from the colony. Badly hurt from the way they told it, and they took her to the emergency room. And then…,"the man said, gesturing toward his arm.

"What?"

"A few minutes later, the screaming started. For whatever damn reason, the patient assaulted two of our doctors, and damaged several robots in the emergency ward. After that, it began attacking anyone she could find. Pretty much everyone from the emergency ward if badly hurt or damaged," the doctor continued.

"The arm?"

"It's fine for now. Just cut it on some glass while I was running."

"Anyone still in there?"

"I don't know if anyone still in there is alive. Most of the people in the recovery wards should have gotten out, but we're missing people from the emergency ward. Plus most of our supplies are still in there. We have people out here who need them."

28 made to move past the doctor.

"You can't go in there alone. Whatever that patient is, she'll tear you apart."

28 sighed.

"You said it yourself. People are missing, probably badly injured. And you need supplies."

28 made his way over the barricade, anti grav engine straining to lift him over the crude barricade.

"Don't play the bloody hero!" The doctor yelled after 28 as he made his way down the entry hall to the rest of the medical ward.

* * *

The recovery ward was a mess. The entire exodus of every person and robot had come straight through the room. Chairs were flipped, beds were on their sides, medical equipment damaged. Here and there, a drop of blood marked the ground. A crutch had been left next to a bed, the occupant gone. The alarms were still blaring, drowning out all other noise.

The next door led to the operating rooms and private offices. All the doors had been flung open, rooms beyond abandoned. A gurney was on its side in the hallway, a surgical robot slumped against it. The robot looked fine, yet was deactivated. On closer inspection, its visor looked to have been cracked, and one of its arms had been smashed. 28 moved past it, making sure each doorway was clear as he passed.

The route to the emergency ward took him past a section of specialist medical suites, such as the nano-therapy unit. The doors were sealed, though whether from the inside or just from disuse ,28 couldn't tell. Taking a left at a t-junction, he came across the entrance hall to the emergency ward.

The ward was an utter wreck. Several medical robots were scattered through the halls, badly damaged. A doctor lay sprawled out inside a supply closet, covered in livid bruises, breathing labored. The alarms still blared.

Picking his way to the emergency room, the doctor's words echoed in his head: "_Don't play the bloody hero_!". 28 had seen movies, scanned a few books, and he knew what was expected of a hero. Fight evil, help the defenseless, and be honorable in all things. He was now trying to keep that in mind as made his way past another damaged medical bot lying on its side, its case broken open to reveal the delicate mechanisms within. Here he had a chance, and he hated every minute of it.

The emergency room was abandoned, more or less. Two doctors were sprawled out on the ground, neither moving. 28 moved through the door.

"Anyone here?" he called out in machine code.

There was a beep of response from on top of a cabinet. A D-FIB unit, hovered into view , just its eyes visible.

"It's alright, your safe now," 28 said moving into view.

In response, the D-FIB unit yelped and ducked back into cover. This puzzled 28 for several second.

Then something cannoned into his back and he was fighting for his life.

28 was slammed against the emergency table , catching the screen in the center of his body and cracking it. Teeth locked around one of the warning lights on his head like a vice. Arms, each severed at the elbow with the stumps covered in what looked to be a mix of tar and melted plastic, scrabbled around his shoulders.

In response, 28 reversed, grav motor whirring to full power. He and his attacker flew backward to the wall by the door, smashing into it with a goo deal of force. 28 heard a grinding of steel plates. Something kneed him in the back of his case, trying to push away from the wall. The teeth were still locked in place.

28 shot forward again, and then slammed back into the wall as fast as he could. Whatever had been clinging to him let go. He turned around to see what it was.

It was the soldier, her armor dented and blood stained. She was crouching before the wall, holding her arms in front of her in a defensive position, holding the chest plate in place. The most striking thing was her face.

The skin was falling, little flakes that fell of each time she moved. A particularly large chunk slid off her cheek and hit the ground with a crunch. Her hair had come away in clumps, now a patchwork of blond strands across her head. She was smiling, in a I'm-completely-deranged kind of way.

"M'am, you have thirty seconds to surrender!" 28 yelled, voice at full volume, containment field projectors out, "Twenty nine! Twenty ei-!"

The woman leapt forward, mouth open, arms out. 28 fired his containment field.

There is little known feature of the steward's containment field. While the field can normally be used to contain a suspect, get close enough on the time of firing, and it acts more or less like a repulser field, similar to one found in the EVE Probe security system. The issue was, it was all a matter of scale.

The woman was sent flying head first out the door , taking a section of the wall with her when her shoulder clipped the wall, causing a sickening snap. 28 saw her hit the far wall of the corridor, the wall actually cracking under the impact. He, in turn, was slammed back by the force of the blast smashing into the table, cracking the casing on his back. It hurt, but it only seemed to concentrate his thoughts.

28 hurried out into the corridor. The only thing in his mind was a single repeating line: I've just killed someone. It didn't matter that there were at the very least a dozen people and robots who were in varying states of unconsciousness and injury. The world had shrunken down to the fact that, in the line of his duty, he had just taken a life.

"M'am are you sti-" 28 began, worry in his voice. There was no response. 28 hovered closer.

The soldier surged up, and got inside 28's reach faster than the robot thought possible. A head butt knocked him back, and a kick caught him in the screen in his chest. He screamed in pain, rage, and utter frustration as his damage alarms screamed that he was losing power and his internal systems were damaged. It took him several seconds to realize the woman's foot was, perhaps miraculously, stuck in his chest. He spun on the spot throwing the woman to the ground, and at the same time wrenching the foot against something vital in his own systems. The woman was bending up to swat at him with the stumps of her arms.

"Final warning!" 28 screamed, the woman's face falling apart inches from his, and activated his containment fields. He fired a single blast even as his power level dipped.

They split apart, each flying in the opposite directions. 28 lost several seconds as the close range blast shorted out his visual systems. He felt himself slam against the wall, felt systems shatter inside himself. By the time he hit the ground, every warning alarm he had, including some he didn't know he had was screaming for him to shutdown, but he resisted.

With a click, he reactivated his optical units, static shooting across the damaged unit. He had to see what he had done. Surprisingly, he thought he could see everything in the clearest detail, better than hi eyes normally could.

The top of the woman's head had been blown off, or at least the skin had been, if that's what it was. He could make out the silver sheen of well polished steel plate where her scalp had been. A flap of skin lay on the floor, at least a few inches thick, but there was no blood. The woman's leg that had been caught in 28's chest had been ripped off by the blast, sitting forlornly upright, the foot wreathed in wires and a piece of a circuit board. The soldier made no move to get up.

28 activated his intercom one last time.

"This is 28, to all security details… medic…al ward secured…sig…signing off," he said the effort hurting him more. Duty done, he began to shut down. As his mind began to darken, he could hear a a voice replying on the intercom, singing a lullaby, tinny and distant.

"_Hush, little baby, don't say a word..._"

28 fell into the darkness.


	25. Update Sort Of

Chapter???

"Author's Note"

Or

"Oh yeah, that thing I was writing, whoops…"

So this is just to let you know I am going to get back to finishing this story. And in lieu of several new chapters were going to do one, massive update that will get us all that closer to the end. Look for that in the next two week (or so…).

With passive-aggressive love,

Morglum da Granger


	26. Paint the Town Red

And here, ladies and gentlemen, we have some resolution. Enjoy.

Chapter 23

"Paint the Town Red"

It was called Checkpoint Six. Time was up.

Three humans armed with stunners and two stewards carrying containment field projectors. One sand bag barricade, six feet high, eight feet long. Comm. unit set on empty crate. Tarpaulin covering set up on three poles covering aforesaid unit.

It was called Checkpoint Six. Time was up.

It lasted thirty seconds. Rease was not impressed.

* * *

"Calling all colonists."

The intercom line was cleared of all calls. Conversations were killed halfway through, leaving speakers talking to themselves on lines filled with buzzing. Every holo-screen went blank for a moment and then went to an out of focus image of a head and shoulders, clad in white. Robots with internal communication links had the voice thundering in their head.

"Calling all colonists."

The Axiom's bridge was filled with the voice of Rease, who Auto was ignoring as much as possible as he worked feverishly and quietly on a weapon for his new friend, who was watching a holo-screen with rapt attention. The young man muttered to himself.

"Endgame."

"Last call."

60 made a long comment on Rease's questionable parentage, in that he was more than likely the male descendant of a female dog. This was generally agreed upon.

"This is the final warning. Anyone in the New York area will be assumed hostile to BNL interests and will be arrested. Attempts to resist arrest, such as they are seen by BNL security team leaders, will be dealt with appropriate force. You have one minute to clear the zone."

Several panicked voices tried to cut into the intercom line to beg for time, to beg for help, for mercy. The helmeted head of Rease began to come into focus on holo-screens.

"We understand this might cause alarm. However, you were given sufficient time to evacuate and prepare. We apologize for the inconvenience, but this is how it has to be. A security team will heading to the Axiom to assess the situation and hold down the fort."

"I address this next part to my two assets who are running amok at the moment. You know who you are. You know what you've done. You know what will happen when we find you. I will take no pleasure in it, and no solace. "

There was a pause, whilst in the city the last few thousand colonists and their accompanying security teams made a break for the Axiom, all order and cohesion lot as they panicked. It was like watching a herd of grazers in flight from a predator. A few noticed black shapes moving against the setting sun, tad pole shaped black objects that seemed to bristle with menace.

"If you want to end this, you can come and see me at the Square, as they call it now. You know why. Your surrender will save these people. Think it through if you can," Rease said, leaning back from the screen.

"To everyone else…good night and good luck."

And with that, the Longest Night (as it would be called later) started. The first roars of GOBLY-N's on the hunt began to sound.

* * *

"Do you know your directive?"

"Come out behind the Fumahol building. Take alley B17D and head up Cosgrove and take a left on Forthright. Take the back door of the Solamnitrix building. Take the service stairs to the three hundredth floor and find storeroom 3001D."

"Acceptable," said Artemis.

"And you?" asked Ed, casting a nervous look at his fellow steward, Cale, who was busying himself staring at GOBLY-N, who was fiddling with an ancient communications interface in the tunnel wall.

"Buying time."

"For us?"

Artemis regarded both stewards silently. She shrugged. It was a motion that suggested that there was a great deal of weight in what was going to be done tonight, and it wasn't going to hinge on a little rescue mission to save one man, no matter how important he might be.

"Guess not," Ed said quietly.

* * *

Every single door along the base of the Axiom was open, with thousands still streaming through. It was a mass crush of humanity, each individual person terrified out of their mind, each one a grain of salt adding up to the towering wall of insanity that crammed itself desperately through every open door. There was no control, no order. Security teams had pulled back from checkpoints, primarily because they faced being crushed to death.

60 knew where he needed to be, where he desperately wanted to be. He seethed with barely controlled anger, and as he hovered in place in the repair ward he did his Dance. He was scuffed and battered from a long day of crowd control, and he hadn't been mollified by Rease's message to the colony.

"Senior, please make this good."

The repair bot gave 60 the equivalent of a worried glance, before returning to the task at hand.

"I've never seen anything like this. My repair catalog has no mention of anything designed like this in BNL records. Even our two friends were in there, once you got past the red tape…"

The female soldier was lying on a repair table, stripped of her armor, as well as most of her skin. Not that it was skin, or a woman. The repair boot attached to her head had essentially proven that. The fact that she looked like a streamlined set of medieval plate armor under it all made it more disturbing that they had assumed that the soldier had been human, and the fact that the situation had just drastically changed.

What had bugged every single person and robot about the soldier was that she had no face under the skin. The head was a rounded, smooth face mask that eventually became a dome at the top of the head like a human skull, with a horizontal slit that was in the roundabout right place for a human mouth and two little depressions were eyes would be. But it was uncannily alien, like it a ball of clay that had been toyed with to the point where it seemed human but inextricably wasn't.

"It's an android."

"You don't say, Senior. My data core says those are illegal. Well, were," 60 said as he got a Look from Senior, several of the repair bots and the human security guards.

"Yes, for general public use," Senior countered, "but that's not to say there weren't some say, in some kind of private use. Our armless friend suggests that at the least."

"So our acquaintance has androids. That's not helping me deal with the situation."

"Well, yes, that is generally true. But the problem is that well I found this," Senior said indicating what appeared to be a small opening where an ear would be on a human head.

"What is it?"

"At first, I thought it was the androids hearing unit, but that's located on the neck."

"Yes?"

"During my examination of the subject, I found residue of this skin analogue inside the opening. I assumed that I had not correctly removed it, and I set about destroying it. But in the process I found something interesting."

60 gave Senior a questioning look that suggested he had much better things to do much better than words ever could.

"It's not just a rubber skin. The face doesn't have jaw, and there's no data input in the eye "sockets". And we both saw these things mouth move and its eyes swivel like a real person. So I took a closer look at the skin, at a cellular level. The equipment here not specifically designed for it, but I got a good look."

"And?"

"The skin, every single part of it, is made of nanobots, millions of them. I cross referenced it some of the "dust" found in the council room, and they match up. "

"And?"

"You don't get it do you, 60? These insignificant robots are organized at the cellular level, all working together to create a mirror image."

The implication hit 60 before Senior said it.

"They could take any face easily, 60 and with the evacuation, they could be in the ship right now."

* * *

It was a few moments with a switchblade, a minute with a scanner, and a neat little switch was made. There were quite a few abandoned supply closets on the Axiom, and no one would check them for a while, so another more important switch was made.

A new person stepped into the hall. And not a moment too soon. A steward came hovering around the corner.

"Sir, come with me, there are reports of infiltrators on board."

"Right."

* * *

At the base of the Axiom, in the shadows of the landing cradle, an exhaust vent opened in the hull of the Axiom. It wasn't very large, and the journey down hadn't been easy (or a pleasant memory), but it had done. Right now, being seen leaving your post wasn't really a good idea, but some things were more important than that.

For one, vengeance. Poor vengeance though it was, but sometimes it had to be done. Eve set off into the night, as fast and quiet as she could. Her ion cannon was out as she flew, ready for use and ready to lay out merry hell on a democratic basis.

If she had looked down for more than a few seconds, she might have noticed something that might have been a bit distressing. Actually, a good deal more distressing than a mission of vengeance, and a bit more important. There were tunnels at the very bottom of the landing cradle because all that excess force from a space ship landing had to go somewhere. And the exhaust was forced down into a series of underground tunnels which would channel the displaced air and landing exhaust into a massive vent a kilometer away. And where there's a map there's a way…

A score of GOBLY-Ns were climbing the Axiom like it was a rock face and they were a species of especially determined spiders. They were swift and sure footed, claws cutting through hull plating that had withstood centuries of micro-meteorite impacts and exposure to the void of space. Some GOBLY-N's carried a few soldiers on there backs, like ticks carried by a pack of wolves.

The pack was climbing toward the light and noise of the refugee column streaming into the Axiom. They were silent, but weapons were ready. Time was very nearly up.

It was exactly three minutes after Eve left the Axiom behind that the first GOBLY-N pulled itself over the side of the central entrance bridge. The seventh casualty of the night occurred exactly seven seconds later.

* * *

An assault craft passed by overhead, searchlights sweeping the quiet, near deserted streets. There were the hunting calls of GOBLY-Ns looking for prey, the occasional snap crack of weapons fire as a colonist was subdued. He could hear screams from the area near the Axiom quite clearly Rease breathed deep, one of the last times he would do so.

"Are you ready?" Eddy asked, at Rease's shoulder.

"As I'll ever be."

"Which one do you think it will be? 03 or 035?"

"I have my money on 03."

"Interesting."

"How are the reinforcements?"

"Very nearly ready for the line."

"Doubt we will need them tonight. After all I'm here, and that's hardly fair."

Eddy gestured to the squad of androids spread out across the Square, their weapons drawn.

"This enough?"

"I want to draw our first target in with a light defensive line, than blitz them with a counterpunch. My kind of style"

"Hope it works."

Rease gave Eddy a questioning look under his helmet.

'Is there another option?"

* * *

The GOBLY-N fell off the bridge into the screaming dark of the Axiom's base. It was missing both its arms from the elbows on down and a good deal of its head had been smashed. It didn't make a sound, as it fell and neither did the pair of android soldiers who clung to its back. If you listened hard, you could hear it hit the cold hard concrete far below.

Of course, you couldn't hear that over the screaming, the roaring and the sound of gunfire.

Artemis was standing on the central entrance bridge, where she had quietly anticipated the first blow of the assault on the Axiom. It wasn't best place to make a stand, but it would by the refugees' time. Two squads of GOBLY-Ns could slip around her with ease in a normal fight. But she knew what they wanted, and they wanted blood, metaphorically hers.

Artemis checked her ammo loads. Two weeks without a reloads had been punishing, especially after the fight in the pit against the gators.

+++Left Shoulder Hopper: 31 mass bolts+++

+++Right Shoulder Hopper: 14 mass bolts+++

+++Chest Hopper: 8 mass bolts+++

+++Reserve Hopper: 0 mass bolts+++

The robot merely sighed inwardly. Each shot would now have to count several times over its worth. The refugees were thinning now, and they had either forced their way into the Axiom or scattered into the wasteland around the ship, panic driving them into the scant comfort offered there.

Artemis knew that she couldn't stop them all. She knew that the second iteration units had their own objective, and would take the other doors and complete their mission, in the bloodiest fashion possible. As soon as the though was conjured, the consideration slid off her mind and into the waiting darkness that seemed to engulf her every waking moment since she'd fought her battle in the pit.

A GOBLY-N charged up the steps of the entrance ramp, flecked with blood, and with at least a dozen of its kind following. Its shoulder weapon was already firing, high caliber rounds slamming into Artemis like hail. Artemis charged, arm blade swinging like a lightning bolt from on high.

* * *

The bridge was busy as it was ever going to be. There was a good deal of panic, as was to be expected of humanity, in Auto's experience anyway. People were screaming over available comm.-line, demanding help, orders or just someone to listen. The fact was there was nothing that could be done, despite the best efforts of the council. Security teams armed with stunners and containment fields were not much of a match for whatever was coming through the lower decks.

"Auto, how is it coming?" asked the young man, leaning against one of the control panels between a pair of panicked colonists. Behind him and far below, the lido deck was a swirling mass of panicked colonists and rushing security teams.

"Well enough, though I calculate it would function better if I had more time. I'm not sure…this device, that it is acceptably safe for use."

"Doesn't have to be. Just needs to work once and work well. If it can do that, then I can handle anything else."

As if to punctuate this point, gunfire sounded below. The crowd scattered on the lido deck. A squad of android doppelgangers was advancing across the deck, firing bursts of gunfire over the head of the colonists. A GOBLY-N was leading them, knife in hand and shoulder cannon tracking targets. They were heading, at a run, for the bride elevator.

Someone started to yell at Auto to lock down the elevator.

Auto complied. But he swore he saw the young man smile.

* * *

It had taken a few minutes for Eve to fly her way to the Square. She had been nervous about the patrols and aircraft, but they didn't seem to be focused on looking for anyone in particular. In fact, most of the aircraft had peeled off and started to head lazily towards the Axiom. Below her, she'd seen nearly two dozen GOBLY-N's running through the streets. She'd heard an escalation in the shooting and screaming back by the Axiom.

For a moment, she considered going back. She could do something, maybe save lives. But necessity had taken a back seat to anger, to vengeance. So she continued on, flying as stealthily as she could through the quiet city streets. Nothing responded to her.

It took a few moments for her to reach the Square, longer still to find a place to get a view of action currently going on down there. This was to say, not much at all. From the destroyed top floor of an apartment building she could a good deal not happening.

There was a squad of soldiers spread across the ground, weapons ready, but they didn't seem to be looking at anything much. They seemed to be ornamentation rather than actual threats. And standing near the back, seemingly conversing with another soldier was Rease, looking like he was perfectly at ease with the world. Eve raised her ion cannon, targeting information already popping up over the man's head.

And suddenly, the gun was being forced up. Eve turned her head, struggling to free her arm. It was a GOBLY-N, or to be more precise, the GOBLY-N. It had been standing no more than a few feet away from her while she landed and gotten into position. Its clamp hand was resting on the ground, half open.

'What the hell do you want?" Eve whispered in machine code, furious, "what do you even think you're doing here?"

The other robot was silent, still holding Eve's arm gun aimed at the sky. He seemed to be considering the question.

"You caused this entire mess. You're getting people killed."

GOBLY-N sighed, sounding like something between exhaustion and frustration. Eve tried to pull free again. Eventually, GOBLY-N spoke, in whisper quiet machine code. Eve realized this was one of the few times she had ever heard the other robot actually speak where she could hear it.

"I know. And I'm so sorry. But you can't interfere."

With that, GOBLY-N let go of Eve's arm, and leapt in to the Square, falling to the concrete below with a crash, before charging in.

* * *

The first android was sent flying by a hit from the clamp arm, head over heels into the pit. The next found himself missing an arm as GOBLY-N's knife scythed through the air in a nasty arc that was barely visible in the darkness. Three more collapsed from a taloned leg shot and swept them from their feet in one collective blow. The rest met their fates quietly and without complaint, laid out by GOBLY-N as he rampaged across the Square.

Rease was calmly walking towards the fight, hands behind his back, sergeant following close behind. GOBLY-N met him head on. It was merely a moment's thought for the clamp arm to shoot out and clutch tight around the sergeant. The android was hurled like a ballistic missile towards a nearby shop front, where he went through the fragile glass windows while barely slowing down.

Rease found himself several feet in the air, held up by GOBLY-N's knife, which had been impaled through his chest.

"So you came back," Rease said, ignoring the robot who had a curiously blank expression on his eye screen, "and alone as well. Can't say I'm disappointed."

GOBLY-N just stared. He seemed to be waiting for something.

"And now you want to end this."

GOBLY-N nodded once. He shook the knife. Rease seemed to sag almost, his body going strangely limp.

"Good. So do I."

And then a shadow clad nightmare of steel and fire came bursting out of the pit. It was all GOBLY-N could do to throw Rease out of the way before he was hit by a virtual storm of weapons. His sensors tracked high caliber rounds, precision laser, and even a micro missile launch slamming into his body. He was hurled to the ground by the force of the attack, armor broken in many places. A foot the size of GOBLY-N's torso came slamming down, GOBLY-N barely managing to roll out of the way.

The robot got to his feet shakily, and readied himself in a matter of seconds. This was still too slow. A clawed fist filled GOBLY-N's face like a small mountain had just landed in front of him, sending him spiraling backwards through the air and destroying the servos in his neck, where he was sent crashing to the ground, concrete flying, armored shell throwing sparks every which way. He didn't try to get up, merely flopped onto his back.

The foot came down again, and this time, it hit its target. GOBLY-N whimpered as both his legs were crushed in a single blow, reduced to scrap just below the knees. He wouldn't walk without serious repairs. GOBLY-N looked up.

The nightmare bent in, and smiled.

It was thirty feet tall. It was built much in the same way as GOBLY-N, that same predatory style and poise, that mix of monster and armor made of chillingly cold steel. It was just a matter of scale. It towered at an easy thirty feet, arms almost a good six feet in diameter at the "bicep". Its shoulder weapons were far larger than anything a GOBLY-N could carry, a matched pair of oversized machine cannons, multiple barrels, like those of a grotesque pipe organ smoking from just a few seconds of firing. Missile pods were visible in its chest, and a pair of laser weapons sat quite comfortably on each arm. It had been painted an orderly slate gray. Its eye screen smiled, blue semi circles upturned in happiness.

"It had to end this way, 035. You brought this upon yourself, upon 03 and upon this colony," the massive robot said with Rease's voice," and just because you were a fool."

GOBLY-N didn't speak. He merely stared at the monster looming above him.

"I've found something interesting though. You're my first real target. So take some pleasure from that. You took part in the field test of ARE-S 01. Though I admit scratching my face off was a clever bit of intuition on your part"

That name awoke something in GOBLY-N. It was the closest his mind could truly come to experiencing terror, even though he'd been dimly aware of what he would be facing before he entered the Square. It took physically seeing the monster in front of him to understand.

Armed Response Entity-Savant Class. Stuff of nightmares come to life. A thinker and a killing machine brought together, as a certain colonel had put it during project development. It was the last word in line breaking, life taking and psychological warfare. And the A.I. was better than top-notch; it was a whole different class of its own.

GOBLY-N reflected that he wasn't dead yet, and that the next step was going to be unpleasant.

"Eddy, I have 035 neutralized. Ready for step two if you are."

"Of course," said Eddy.

What floated out of the darkness was quite bizarre. It looked like a robotic octopus in a way, about the size of a mini-van. GOBLY-N could see the anti-grav unit that held it aloft. It was a nightmare of blackened steel and writhing tentacle arms. It moved with an obscene grace, like it didn't in-sync with reality.

It hovered over to the crippled form of GOBLY-N, and one of its tentacles became apart, revealing a cluster of data probes. It placed them in the data slot in GOBLY-N's back, causing the robot to have what amounted to a seizure. GOBLY-N's body jerked and danced on the concrete, shattered armor smacking the ground like an avalanche of pots and pans falling from on high.

Unbeknownst to both a signal was sent from GOBLY-N's internal comm.-unit, relayed through dozens of buried comm. stations, all the way back to the Axiom's bridge.

Around that same time, Eve decided to open fire on ARE-S. An ion blast caught the behemoth in the back. He barely flinched. ARE-S turned towards the building where the shot had come from.

"You. I was wondering if you'd come," he said, laughing lightly, "turns out I was actually right."

He extended an arm blade, an eight foot long piece of sharpened steel that crackled with energy.

"Let's see what you're made of, little one," ARE-S said, and charged.

* * *

Eddy let ARES go. He had more important things to do anyway. He was delving through the mind of GOBLY-N, peeling back layers of data and meaningless chatter. He stepped onto the grassy plains of the unit's sub-conscious and deepest hardware, such as it was.

Eddy prided himself on creating this place. It was supposed to calming. He had never had top test it before, but it seemed to have worked partially, at least well enough t keep the 035 partially tame till now. Otherwise…Eddy didn't want to think about that. Too much relied on secrecy to keep this project safe. Eddy began to walk towards the temple in the distance.

With each step, the grass began to burn, and the sky turned red. Distant trees bent and sagged as if they were melting candles. Eddy was doing house cleaning: he was burning away the last pieces of 035's mind. Eddy idly noticed he had legs, something which he hadn't truly had for a very long time now. It felt good, if artificial.

It was a few minutes of work to make his way to the statue garden. As Eddy passed the statues crumbled one by one, falling to the ground like the dead of some ancient battle field. The temple began to shake, pieces of stone bricks crashing into the ground from on high. He walked through it all, calm and quiet.

Eddy slipped across the temple's main chamber, heading for the altar at the far end. He saw the footprints in the dust. He was surprised it had only been two. The altar snapped in two, as if had been struck in the middle by a well placed blow. It crumbled to dust before Eddy's eyes.

Where the altar had been, there was now a set of stairs set into the stone floor. Eddy considered them for a moment. Behind him, the grasslands burned. Too late to go back.

The flight of steps was short, and ended at a small cat-iron door. Defenses that had been placed here for such an intrusion never even registered Eddy's presence.

He pushed the door open with a simple flex of a few fingers. It swung in as if it had blown off its hinges. It was as weak as he had suspected. So that was how it had all come apart, he mused. A little weakness in the program. Interesting.

The room beyond was small and simple, the walls made of white-washed bricks. Eddy could make out the deep scratches in the paint, and in the tiled floor. He'd seen this before. Insanity of the worst sort, the consumptive kind. The figure sitting against the far wall radiated a special kind of madness. For one so young, he had an awful lot of hate.

"Murderer," the man said, his fists clenched. But he did not rise.

"That's all a matter of point of view, Don," Edwin Kilpatsky said.


End file.
